


Experiment

by Arya_Ender



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Laboratory, Alternate Universe - Science Fiction, Alternate Universe - Scientists, Alternate Universe - Supernatural Elements, Author is pretty busy with life atm so sorry if i miss updates!, Bertolt is spelt Bertholdt, Blood, Blood and Injury, Blood and Violence, Crystals, Doctors & Physicians, Eventual Marco Bott/Jean Kirstein, Eventual Reiner Braun/Bertolt Hoover, Eventual Romance, Fever, Fever Dreams, Hallucinations, I keep adding tags holy, Illnesses, Laboratories, Language, M/M, Marco Bott/Jean Kirstein-centric, Memory Alteration, Memory Loss, Minor Original Character(s), Modern Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan, Note that only the first four characters will be present in the story lmao, POV Bertolt Hoover, POV First Person, POV Jean Kirstein, POV Male Character, POV Marco Bott, POV Multiple, POV Reiner Braun, Psychic Abilities, Rated For Violence, References to Illness, Regeneration, Reibert - Freeform, Reiner Braun/Bertolt Hoover-centric, Science Fiction, Science Fiction & Fantasy, Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan References, Slight Attack On Titan Spoilers, Slow Build, Slow Burn, Slow Romance, Stabbing, Stitches, Strength, The rest will be here soon don't worry, chapters get longer as they go, ill probably update every week ish, jeanmarco, rated for language
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-15
Updated: 2021-02-18
Packaged: 2021-03-06 14:15:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 17
Words: 54,203
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26470258
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Arya_Ender/pseuds/Arya_Ender
Summary: 100 years later after an unknown radiation, toxin, and plague consume the Earth, the remainder of the world lives in fear of the mutated humans who were consumed by the disasters— turned into dangerous, mindless creatures who can kill within seconds.For Jean, Marco, Reiner, and Bertholdt, the only life they can remember is a secluded laboratory away from most humans, not remembering a thing due to the radiation messing up their minds.Along with their bodies.The dreams and nightmares surface randomly, though it's not for certain that they meant anything to them. Some seem familiar, but once the suspicion takes a toll on their minds, power becomes unstable.What exactly is being hidden from them?Some science fiction AU with the main characters being Jean, Marco, Reiner, and Bertholdt because they are my favourites.(Oh and they deserve a story that focuses on them.)Notice 21/2/22: This story is temporarily being postponed. I'm quite busy at the moment! Refer to my recent Tumblr post for more details :>Thank you for keeping up with Experiment!
Relationships: Bertolt Hoover & Jean Kirstein, Marco Bott & Bertolt Hoover, Marco Bott & Bertolt Hoover & Jean Kirstein, Marco Bott & Jean Kirstein, Marco Bott & Reiner Braun, Marco Bott & Reiner Braun & Bertolt Hoover & Jean Kirstein, Marco Bott & Reiner Braun & Jean Kirstein, Marco Bott/Jean Kirstein, Reiner Braun & Bertolt Hoover, Reiner Braun & Jean Kirstein, Reiner Braun/Bertolt Hoover
Comments: 80
Kudos: 124





	1. Wake Up (Jean's POV)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note: The story should be spoiler free. However, if you aren't caught up with the manga or anime, there will be some spoilers, although there are very few, subtle, and undecipherable. Please read at your own risk.
> 
> The POVs will consist of Jean, Marco, Reiner, and Bertholdt for anyone who is wondering.

All I can feel is the cold, hard, icy ground. My chest feels tight and my back feels like it'll snap into two. It feels like I've been sleeping this whole time, though, not really. The sounds of unknown voices begin to drown in my head, all of them swirling around until they become clear. My eyes shoot open and although my vision is blurry, it only lasts for a brief moment.

_ "Do you think he'll wake up? He's been sleeping for a while now…" _

_ "Should I wake him up?" _

_ "I don't know but I think he's awake…" _

Panic rushes down my spine when words and vision become comprehensible.

I frantically sit up and almost scream. One guy is telling me to be quiet and he's assuring me that everything's okay. He looks like a freaking nervous wreck, but his eye starts to glow out of nowhere. The other guy though... His whole right side starting from the first bone of his rib cage going up was stitched up. Something bit him. He should be dead but he's alive. How the hell was I going to keep calm when a guy that should be dead is right in front of me and living?! 

"Dude calm down!" One of them yells, holding me stiffly by the shoulders. He's so damn strong that I can't wriggle out. It feels like he's going to crush my shoulder blades. "Calm down, are you okay?" I blink back at him, panting crazily. I want to speak but I'm lost for words.

What the hell is going on?!

I take a deep breath. God, the pain in my chest was killing me. "Who are you? Where am I?" I ask, swallowing the lump of anxiety in my throat.

"You're in a laboratory." The guy replies. "I'm Reiner. Sorry for having to pin you to the wall." 

He finally let's go of my shoulders, thankfully. I rub my right shoulder. They're all looking at me as if I was on display. I glare right back at them and grit my teeth. 

"I don't get it, why am I here?"

"I guess they didn't tell you."

I raise my voice. "Didn't tell me what?!"

"Well, have a look at yourself."

I look down at my body confused, until I look at my hands which looked like they had glass shoved in the middle of my palms causing them to be see-through.

"W-What the hell?!" I shout. "W-What is this?! Why do I have it?!" Anxiety starts to overwhelm me again but they're all looking at me calmly. What the fuck is wrong with me?

"You have a power, isn't it obvious?" Reiner folds his arms and sighs. "Chill out. We had the same reaction too."

I look at my palms again and trace my finger over one of the clear glass-like panes. My expression becomes one of disgust. Now my hand feels weird because the sight is weird.

"What power exactly?"

"I don't know man. Try doing something maybe?"

"Like what?!"

I sigh heavily and sit on the ground. This is bullshit… 

"You're gonna be okay." The half dead guy says, sitting down next to me.

"What's your name?"

I think for a second. What is my name? I don't remember anything for some weird reason.

"Jean." I say hesitantly. The freak smiles back.

"Marco." 

"Do any of you remember anything?" The tall guy in front of me shakes his head.

"No… Not really. I-I'm Bertholdt." 

I put a hand on my head and close my eyes. This was probably just some stupid dream I'm having that I had to be woken up from. Whatever dream it was though was a stressful one. My brain is so problematic…

The door slides open and we all turn our heads to a lady in a white lab coat. She had brown hair tied back into a bun and had a clipboard in her hands. She looked at me, emotionless, and walked up to me, putting a hand on my shoulder.

"Come with me please." She says in a calm voice.

I look at the others. Bertholdt whispers to me quietly, telling me to go with her. Well, it's not like I had anything better to do. Plus I could ask her some questions so my anxiety goes down.

Getting up, I follow her around the facility. It was dark and cold. The only things lighting up the rooms were the lights on the ceiling. I didn't see other people which seemed odd to me. I shivered at the icy atmosphere. If this was a lab, where are the people working there?

"In here, please." She opens the door to a small room. "Sit down." I do as asked and sit down with my hands in my lap. She finishes writing something on her clipboard and takes a seat angled in front of me. I feel like I'm at a doctor's office— well, it could be considered one.

"Do you have a name you remember?"

I nod. "Jean Kirschtein."

She goes back to jotting something down. It was probably my name. She looks back at me after finishing. I don't know why, but the way she looks at me is making me anxious as hell. Like she's about to tell me something bad.

"I am Dr. Holt. I will be working with you. I assume you're wondering as to why you're here." 

Nervous, I nod at her.

"In case you have forgotten, the world is in ruin. An unknown radiation, toxin, and plague has turned humanity into deadly mutated creatures with dangerous and unknown powers." 

I kept fumbling with my hands, tracing my fingers along the glass engraved onto my palms.

"Like the other three boys in that room, you lost your memories due to being struck with the radiation." Dr. Holt gets up and grabs a cup, filling it with what I should assume is water and hands it to me. I'm skeptical, but I drink it anyway. 

"Other people would have died or mutated into one of the monsters. You have a certain genetic coding that allowed your body to absorb radiation, therefore you've become a fully self-aware mutated human as opposed to the mindless ones out there killing people." 

"Is it possible for me to get my memories back?" Dr. Holt shakes her head. 

"We aren’t sure. The radiation wipes out everything except for your name and possibly other parts of your identity. I apologize." I look down at my hands and grip them tightly. 

_ ‘Maybe it’s for the best.’  _ I thought, sighing deeply.

"Now, you're probably wondering about those strange things on your hands." She takes her clipboard and gets up to open the door. "Come with me. I wanted to wait till you were awake to take the time to examine you." 

_ 'Might as well just go with her.'  _ My thoughts declare. _ 'I need to know. _

_ I need to know.' _

I followed her to the examination room. The walls were white with a grey trim running along the bottom. There was a chair for the examined to sit in as well as locked cabinets with tools. The thing that caught my eye was this clear cylinder-shaped chamber in the corner of the room. I placed my hand on the glass then looked back at my hand.

"If you may, step inside please." Dr. Holt pointed to the chamber with her pen and I stepped inside. She locked the door and moved to the control panel. "Tell me if you feel any discomforts." I nod and bite my lip anxiously.

  
  


The whirring from the chamber filled the room. I watched the red line turn a bright green every time it touched the top of my head. My eyes turned to Dr. Holt who was looking down at the control panel. It was hard to believe she could get all my data from just this thing alone. It was kind of cool.

The door opened and Dr. Holt lets me come out. She then advises me to sit in the chair while she goes and gets something from one of the locked cabinets.

"It's quite obvious that you have two glass-like panes on your palms. While I scanned you, I found another one on your chest where your heart would be." I place my hand on my chest and take off my shirt, placing it on the desk nearby.

"Interesting. It's like you have a glass casing that surrounds your heart." She says, tapping my chest. "I doubt it'll break easily. While I scanned you, it appears the casing as well as the panes on your hands are made of a clear crystal harder than diamonds." Grabbing a knife, Dr. Holt stabs my hand. 

The blade shatters into shards of sharp metal.

I look at my hand and run my finger on it's palm. Dr. Holt turns to me while writing down her findings.

"Does it feel like crystal at all?"

"No, not really. It just feels like my hand."

Suddenly, a crystal forms in the palm of my hand. Alarmed, I catch it before it falls to the ground. I look at my hand again. How the hell did I do that? I wanted to make another one, but I couldn't retrace how to trigger the power again. God I'm such an idiot. 

Dr. Holt takes the crystal from my hand and examines it. "How did you do that?" She asks, placing the crystal on the desk.

"I don't know. I just looked at my hand. Then it felt weird and it just came." She nods and picks up the crystal, placing it into a metal box then has me stand up. 

"Put on your shirt. You're going back to containment now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope the story interests you! I will be updating the Among Us story very soon.
> 
> Thank you for your support!


	2. Nothing to Be Scared of (Marco's POV)

I stare at my journal, bored once again. I’m always told to write something in it to keep track of my own findings, but sometimes I have nothing to write about. I sigh and look over at Bertholdt who was taking a nap in the corner with Reiner. I giggle at the pair. Bertholdt seemed to be kicking Reiner in his sleep. He’s always had funny sleeping positions.

I've been in here for about three months now. Not as long as Reiner and Bertholdt. The place could get interesting at times, but there has been a point where something not so pleasant _has_ happened. To be honest, I don't really want to think about it any longer. The thought still scars me and Bertholdt would rather—

Suddenly, Jean comes back from his assessment. I drop my pencil and run straight to him. “You’re back!” I say excitedly. 

“Yeah…” Jean gives me a weird look but all I want to do is giggle at him. “What’s with your eyes? Weren’t they brown or something a minute ago?”

I tilt my head at him before responding. “My eyes change colour. Yours do as well.” Jean looks at me in disbelief before shouting “Seriously?!” at me. I just keep laughing at him. I’m so silly sometimes.

"Since you're back, wanna play a game?"

“Sure I guess. What exactly can we do here?”

I take his hand and pull him over to one of the tables in our room. His hand is really soft and warm. It feels kind of weird because the half that’s been bitten off usually feels cold. 

“Just sit down. I’m going to grab something.” I look through one of the drawers and pull out a pack of cards, laying them out on the table. 

“Do you know how to play cards?”

Jean shakes his head. “No, not really.”

“I’ll start off easy then. We can play Go Fish.”

Jean nods and I start dealing the deck of cards, handing seven to him and keeping seven for myself, the rest of the deck placed in the middle between us both. 

“Basically I ask you if you have the same card as me. If you do, you give that card to me and I get a point for every pair of cards I have. If you don’t happen to have my card, you say, “Go Fish.” Simple, right?” Jean nods his head and looks at his deck.

“Alright. Let’s play. Ace of spades?”

I chuckle as I hand him my card. 

“Better be careful, Jean. I’m really good at card games.”

Jean scoffs. “Really?”

“Yeah. I destroy Reiner.”

“Damn. Well, let’s see. Maybe I’ll get lucky.”

My smile widens as we play. Jean’s taking the game seriously. He seems pretty competitive. It looks like he isn’t scared of me anymore which is a relief. 

I pick at one of my stitches. They feel like they’re coming undone again. They can be such nuisances. Sometimes the area that meets the other part of my body gets itchy and I can’t scratch it because of the stitch. If they’re new stitches, they hurt as well so I absolutely hate getting new ones or even having them on.

Sometimes I wish the glue in one of the cabinets could glue my other half back on.

"So… What's it feel like having… Y'know a chunk of your body bitten off?" Jean asks, breaking the silence. "I hope it doesn't sound weird I-I was just curious." I smile gently at him.

He has a cute face. A really cute one.  
  
  


Thinking back at his question, I think about the time I woke up in the room. My right side felt weak, almost like it was never there in the first place. No, that's not right. I couldn't feel that side at all. The only feeling I felt was the pain of the stitches gripping the two sides together. In about a month or so, I could sort of feel the right side of my body. Nowadays though, all it ever feels is cold. 

"It feels weird. It used to feel like nothing but it usually just feels cold now." My deck only has about three cards left. It ends up being four when Jean tells me he doesn't have a queen of hearts in his deck. 

"You're getting lucky." I pout. 

Jean laughs and gives me a cocky look. "I told you I'd get lucky."

As we play, a groan comes from the corner of the room. Me and Jean's attention turns to the pair sleeping— used to be soundly— in the corner.

"Mmmhhh… Bertholdt get off of me…" Reiner yawns, trying to push him off. I chuckle and look back at Jean who's also laughing.

"Do they always sleep like that?" Jean asks, bringing my attention back to him. 

"Well, sure. Bertholdt sleeps next to Reiner. Though, he's always had interesting sleeping positions. It's kind of funny actually." I look back at Bertholdt, still sleeping face forward on the ground. Reiner was sitting up now and stretching his arms. 

"You're up. Bertholdt kicked you in the face again?" I tease.

"Mhm. When does he not?"

"Well one time he was sleeping on his back and you and I were the "mattress" for the bed."

"Doesn't matter he still crushed us both. He's heavy as hell."

"Not as heavy as you—"

Jean laughs and grabs another card from the deck. I look back at him and ask for a card with 7 clubs on it. Lucky enough for me, it was now my last card.

"Woah man, that's a big mistake playing cards with Marco." Reiner says, taking a seat beside me. "He always—"

"Is that because you suck?" Jean says teasingly. "Marco told me you suck at card games." Reiner then looks at me and I giggle nervously.

"I didn't say you sucked. I said I destroy you at cards."

"Like hell you do."

We all let out a laugh as I finish cleaning up the scattered cards. I tuck the deck back into its box and place it into the drawer. I look back at Bertholdt and walk over to him, poking the back of his head.

"Wake up sleepy head. Jean's back." Bertholdt mumbles something like, "Five more minutes" then dozes off back to sleep. I let out a sigh and walk back to Reiner and Jean. 

"Guess he's not waking up this time." I mutter softly. 

"I hope he isn't gonna wake up having a nightmare." I look at Reiner and nod. We all have nightmares but Bertholdt's are usually worse than ours. One time he woke up in the middle of the night screaming and wouldn't calm down. The doctors had to step in and that's when Reiner got really defensive. 

He wouldn't let go of Bertholdt and kept insisting that if the doctor's intervened, it'd only make his paranoia worse. But you know, they stepped in anyway and took him to the room for examination. I blacked out but before I did, I saw the doctor having to tranquilize Reiner because he wouldn't calm down either. The whole thing just kept me awake the whole time when I did wake up, having me question what kind of dream Bertholdt had.

The sounds of screaming still chill my spine. 

_"Why? What's so bad about the nightmare?"_

I froze for a second before looking at Jean.

"What are you looking at me like that for Marco?" He asked, placing a hand on his hip. I look at Reiner in worry and in return he exchanges a sigh.

"We didn't explain our powers to you yet. I forgot about that." Reiner says, trying to avoid the question. I nod at his statement. 

"Yeah! We didn't get the chance to show you what we—"

"Mmmm… Sorry for not getting up earlier. Did I miss anything?"

Looking to my left, Bertholdt comes up rubbing his eye and yawning. My worry washes away and I smile awkwardly at him.

"You didn't. Don't worry Bertholdt." 

"Aren't we supposed to have examination time in a couple minutes?"

Aw shoot. I completely forgot about examination time. I look at my stitches and make an annoyed expression. 

_'Dr. Garner is going to stitch me up then scold me again.'_ I think nervously. A hand is then placed on my shoulder. Looking up, Reiner is there towering above me with a gentle, reassuring smile on his face.

"You're gonna be fine Marco. Nothing to be scared of."

I chuckle. "I hope so."

_"Marco."_

Jean looks at me, pensive. 

_"Marco, what happened?"_

The door slides open and Dr. Hunter steps inside. 

_"What happened that night?"_

I don't look back at him.

I don't know if I should tell him. I don't want to scare him.

_"Don't worry about it, Jean. It's not really that bad.."_

Is it that bad? I'm starting to question myself.

The sound of Dr. Hunter's voice begins to fade away as I'm lost in thoughts.

Though, there's nothing to be scared of like Reiner says.

Right…?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the late chapter! School has been kind of forbidding me to write haha. 
> 
> I hope you enjoyed this chapter!


	3. Trust (Reiner's POV)

I don’t trust the doctors. Not one bit.

Not after what happened that night. 

I walk down the halls with Dr. Atkinson towards the testing room. I bet he wants to see what other stuff I can break with just my fist. I catch him looking down at me and I exchange a glare. He backs off. He knows why I gave him that cold look in my eyes. 

We walk inside and he tells me to wait here. I nod, but don’t take my eyes off of him. Not even for a second. I watch him pull out something from the drawers. I shiver. Not from cold air, but the fear of him pulling another needle on me to put me to sleep.

I can feel my fist tighten with every tick of the analog clock.

"Reiner." Dr. Atkinson says, his voice stern and serious as always. He turns around to face me while putting gloves on his hands. 

"We both know you can't keep defying our orders."

"Why the hell do you think I'm not listening to your bullshit?"

"Keep your voice down." He says in a condescending tone, easily overpowering mine.

The doctors are supposed to be our caretakers, but it doesn’t seem like it now. That grudge in my head still makes me worry and extremely cautious. My time with Bertholdt and Marco were great times. In fact, Marco and Bertholdt feel like family. It only furthers me to want to protect them.

Maybe Jean too.

"Today I want to test your pain endurance. After examining your muscle tissues, it shows that your nerves respond to pain differently than others." He flips a paper from his clipboard to the next page. 

"Can you confirm this yourself?"

"Yes I can. I barely felt any pain when you stabbed me with that needle."

Dr. Atkinson sighs and writes my words down on paper. 

"Alright. Time to start. Tell me if the pain becomes intolerable."

* * *

I wince as the metal is forced into my arm, piercing my flesh.

The blood splatters onto the floor shining a deep crimson red. I watch as Dr. Atkinson pulls off another of my plates with pliers, ripping it off along with some skin and flesh leaving a nasty burn. Probably one of the only things that really feel painful; Ripping off my plates. 

Seriously, stabbing me a million times everywhere would be less painful than that.

I know whenever Marco gets this kind of painful testing, he just thinks of other things. Happy thoughts. He thinks of what the world used to look like; thinks of nature and the animals outside. He thinks all the positive things. He's such an optimistic person. 

What do I do? Lie there, scream, and yell. 

I've never thought about a way to escape the pain. I just let it go and soon, it'll all be over within an hour or more. Maybe it's a good idea to think of something other than the stinging sensation in my left arm. Though, it's hard to think of something else. I don't exactly have anything to think about in particular.

_'Drowning your consciousness into your own thoughts isn't a bad idea.'_ I thought as the pliers ripped off a plate on my right arm.

"How are you feeling? You seem to be in a lot more pain than anticipated." Dr. Atkinson says, placing the bloody pliers onto the tray next to him. I glance at him, breathing heavily. 

"When you rip off my plates it really hurts." I quickly say. My vision turns to my left arm. All the tears oozed blood; my skin and flesh torn apart like meat. It was so ripped up that I could see white… White?

Shit, that's a bone.

"I assume that's the only thing bothering you. I'll continue to proceed." My mouth opens but no words come out. I close my eyes and just figure that it'll all be over soon and interfering with Dr. Atkinson will just keep me here longer. I know Bertholdt starts to get worried when I don't come back after a while.

I had a test that would show how well my body could regenerate and how fast it took to heal. I was knocked out the second it began so I barely remember what it felt like. My consciousness was thrown out the window too. The doctors said I was in a coma for about three weeks at the most. Therefore, determining what injuries I actually had was hard. The most I could remember though was head trauma, a broken wrist, a fractured ankle, broken ribs, a broken shoulder and arm, and a cut to my throat. 

Now that I think about it I really wonder what caused all my injuries.

I get unsteady whenever I think about waking up in recovery and making my way back to the containment room. Bertholdt wouldn't let go of me when I got back and became extremely overprotective. He was even out of character. He yelled at the doctors for putting me through a life threatening operation. This happened when it was only me and him at the lab way before Marco came.

It's odd that I don't seem to remember what happened after that though.

Actually, it's hard to even remember anything at all sometimes. Even still, it makes me wonder why.

I let out a scream as one of my plates crack and plunge deep into my arm. To me, it kind of looks like a piece of glass that decided to land onto my arm and be a bitch. Sometimes that happens when my plates get removed. They either come in one piece or a million shards, and they're really hard to remove.

"Just a little longer now." Dr. Atkinson says, taking a pair of tweezers and removing the plate sticking out of my arm. Sighing, I nod and relax my head against the cushion. 

_'Maybe I can sleep through it instead.'_ I think, chuckling to myself.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


Though I'm wrong, of course I am.

Harsh, loud, blood-curdling screaming echoes throughout the halls.

Goosebumps begin to form all over my skin as my eyes shoot open.

I know who's voice that is.

I know what's going on in there.

That damned night comes taunting right back at me once more.

* * *

_My eyes shoot awake in the middle of the night. I frantically turn to my left to the source of the sound._

_Bertholdt._

_Worry and panic takes me over and I grab him by the shoulders, furiously shaking him awake. He's covering his ears and screaming so loud… I don't understand what's happening. I hear a subtle "Reiner what's going on?!" From the right. I know it's Marco, but I don't answer. All my focus is put on Bertholdt, and only Bertholdt._

_He finally opens_ _his eyes and clings onto me tightly. I couldn't understand why this was happening or why he was freaking out. That wasn't what needed to be done right now. What I need to do is calm him down and hopefully not wake up the doctors._

_"Is everything okay?!" Marco says worrily, crouching down next to me._

_"I-I don't know." I stammer. He's crying into my chest and screaming things like "It's going to hurt me" and "It's real, it's real" and it's all just confusing me more and more. It almost feels like a nightmare. Marco's looking at me all worried and I'm looking at him in fear. All I can do is just hold him, assure him that everything's going to be okay. We've all had nightmares and bad dreams._

_I just don't understand why this is happening._

_I hear the door slide open and the doctors rushing inside. Bertholdt looks up at me, his face all flushed and red from crying. I try to ask him what's wrong, but all the clamour and noise distract me from getting him to answer. Dr. Atkinson rushes up to me and before I can go look at him, Bertholdt tugs on my sleeve._

**_"D-Don't trust t-the doctors."_ **

_I look at him, confused and even more worried._

_I look at Marco, naïvely thinking he knows what he means. He can only shrug his shoulders as Dr. Garner continues to pester him with questions. Dr. Atkinson grabs my hand and tries to pull it away from Bertholdt. I try to shield him away from them._

_Was it fear? Was it fear of what Bertholdt said that made me do that?_

_"Reiner let go of him. Let us handle this."_

_"Reiner… Please… Listen to me." Bertholdt says through sobs._

_For a moment, it felt like time stopped. I stared into his pale green eyes, his tears glistening in whatever light there was in that dark room. He was frightened; He didn't dare let go of me. The smile on his face disappeared from the memories I had with him in this lab. Only his terrified expression was engraved in my head. My heart raced with every second I spent trying to figure out what scared him._

_And before I could react, my arms were pulled away from him._

_"Bertholdt!" I called out, trying to get a hold of his hand. Marco extends his hand out to help, but Dr. Garner holds him back. I watch as Bertholdt gets dragged away, screaming my name. He's trying to get them off, tugging at their hands and trying to run back inside. He's calling out my name along with the endless "no's" that could be heard throughout the whole laboratory._

_At that moment, I felt a non-existent stick snap in my head._

_I shove the assistant holding onto me into the wall and start running towards him. Adrenaline rushes through my veins as my heart pounds faster and faster. I could hear the doctors shouting orders amongst all the chaos, orders to get security and—_

_Oh fuck it. I could care less about it right now._

_I grab one of the doctor's hands and throw her against the wall. Red lights suddenly go off, but I don't pay any more attention to them. I grab Bertholdt's hand and grip onto it tightly._

**_'I'm not letting go of you.'_ ** _I thought._

_Which only lasted a moment because suddenly I'm kicked down and my head hits the cold, hard ground of the lab's hallway. I'm kicked so hard that I could feel blood dripping down my head onto my face. Someone grabs my wrist in an attempt to restrain me, but I punch them away and try to get back up. I'm persistent, and I won't stop until I've done what I need to do._

_But someone manages to pin me down to the ground and leave me imobile. I grunt and start shouting at them to let me go, desperately trying to pull my body away from their grip._

_And out of nowhere, some kind of fire-like wave explodes from where Bertholdt and the doctors were. The windows shattered and some of it even disintegrated, but it also left the hallway walls scorched. Looking back up, I cough at the smoke-filled air and see two or three still bodies on the ground. I then look up at Bertholdt who was miraculously okay._

_Then time stops for a second._

_I look at a now crying Marco, yelling me and Bertholdt's names. I don't know what he did, but whatever it was caused him to fall onto the ground with him now unconscious._

_My vision starts to become blurry as I look at Bertholdt getting dragged away into the darkness. He calls my name one more time, then his voice is sucked out of his body._

_And all I can do is watch._

_And the unknown strength I had begins to fade away._

_And when I try to get up my body feels weak._

_And the next thing I know, everything turns to black._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! Thank you for keeping up with the story!
> 
> I have been writing a few more chapters in advanced just in case school gets me busy, so that's why I haven't released this chapter yet haha. I will also be trying to update at least once every week.
> 
> I'd be very glad to know if the story is entertaining you, so please tell me!
> 
> I hope you enjoyed the chapter!


	4. That Night (Bertholdt's POV)

My body trembles furiously, not even bothering to stop for a second.

The room is dark, not even lit. I’m hugging my knees like a scared child, screaming because I know something is there. The doctors can’t see it. Reiner, Marco, and Jean can’t see it. Maybe they can hear it, but I know for sure they can’t see it. I peek over my knees and my head shoots back down again. 

That was a mistake.

Incoherent speech starts to rise again and I place my hands over my ears. Ever since that night, the only thing Dr. Leitner has been studying is my stupid hallucinations. That’s the only thing that seems to fascinate the doctors right now. That’s why I’m placed in this cold, dark room with no one in it except me. 

I sigh as I hug my knees again. Tears start to build up in my eyes again. I can’t help but cry. I’ve been crying a lot lately.

Am I a coward for doing so? 

_'Go away, go away, go away, go away…'_ I say in my head until I realize I'm chanting the words out loud. The recurring voice takes the time to mockingly laugh at my pleas. I can feel it make its way through the dark and sit down next to me. I move slowly, afraid that it might do something to hurt me in the real world.

But for some reason that isn't the case.

Instead, something light taps my shoulder. I turn my head thinking it’s Dr. Leitner, except it’s not. A little girl is there instead. She taps me on the shoulder again and looks at me, confused. Her finger was as light as a feather. I wipe away my tears and look into her eyes.  
  


She’s about the size of an eight year old girl I think. She’s wearing a grey long-sleeved dress with white, pink, and grey plaid running down the sleeves and pocket. She also wore black stockings with knee-high white lace-up boots and had a hairband in her hair. She was holding onto a book and handed it to me. 

I open the book carefully. It looks like it’s a diary, except nothing is written in it. I look back up at her and tilt my head. She takes the book and flips a couple pages revealing a question in neatly printed handwriting.

_‘Are you okay?’_ The text reads.

She taps my head gently and hands me a pen.

_‘Who are you?’_ I write nervously.

_‘Luanna Valeria Edmond.’_

The girl looks down and clutches the book tightly in her arms. She points at the ground beside me then looks up.

“You want to sit down next to me…?” I ask in a gentle tone of voice. She nods, sitting down; Her wavy grey dress covering her thighs.

By the way her attire looked, I knew her family was a wealthy one. From the books I’ve read, wealthy families loved to dress their daughters all lady-like. They always gave them dresses and bows or headbands to put on. To add onto that, her handwriting was neat and cursive. Most rich families taught their children cursive.

Hold on, if she’s here, isn’t she just another of my hallucinations?

Luanna taps my shoulder and holds up her book.

_‘Why were you crying?’_

I blush awkwardly and grab the book to write my response.

_‘I’m scared.’_

_‘Do you want a hug?’_

_‘A hug would be nice…’_

She puts down the book, hugging me from the side. I could feel her tiny body try to cover mine with her arms. I ended up turning around so she could hug me properly. For a moment, I felt safe. Was it because she was in my arms? Or was it because I wasn’t alone in this room anymore?

Whatever feeling it was, I longed for it to stay with me.

“Can you talk?” I asked in curiosity. Luanna shook her head and went to retrieve her book, writing in it once more.

_‘I can’t talk. I’m what people call a mute girl.’_

My eyes widened in surprise. Though, I quickly became flustered, feeling that I’ve asked a rude question. Small noises come from her and I assume she’s giggling. 

_‘Your face looked funny when I told you I’m mute so I laughed.’_

I smile awkwardly and scratch the back of my head. The room felt less frightening now that she was here. It was like the shadowy figure that threatened to hurt me was gone in an instant. You could say it just disappeared in thin air.

That’s what my hallucinations are supposed to do though.

_'What is your name?'_ Luanna asks as she adjusts the headband. She lets out a small sigh and I turn my head to face hers after writing down my response.

_'Bertholdt Hoover.'_

_'That's a nice name. It doesn't sound very common though.'_

_'Oh?'_

Luanna brushes her hair behind her shoulders and looks back at me. She flicks her hair again but this time, she whips it back with a hint of sass. I giggle and she starts laughing with me. A question comes to my mind and I look at her book again.

_'You're not here to hurt me, right?'_

The ink of the pen flows smoothly as she writes.

_'Why would I want to hurt you?'_

I feel embarrassment splatter onto my face like I've once again said something rude or hurtful. 

_'Sorry for asking… It's just… Everybody I've seen here in this room wants to hurt me except you.'_ I quickly write.

Luanna looks at me once more before picking up the pen.

_'I see. Well, I won't hurt you.'_

She looks up at me and smiles, playing with the end of her dress. Her small figure shuffles closer and puts her weight against my shoulder. I can't frown at the sight of this.

My smile fades when I come to the realization that seeing her again is unlikely. She’s the only thing that hasn’t come to hurt me, hasn’t tried to stab me or mock me in any shape or form. She was pure-hearted and kind. She didn’t want to hurt me. I didn’t know if she would come back unlike the other things I’ve seen.

But I didn’t understand why she was here in the first place.

“Would you come back to see me?” I say, turning my head to her.

_‘Of course. I’ll be right next to you, okay?’_

I smile and gently pat her head.

Luanna suddenly gets up, mouthing a “sorry” before running into the darkness. Leaving me confused, I get up to run after her. I’m not sure if the other things I see can hurt her. I’m not sure if the doctors can see her, though I know it’s unlikely. Why am I even running after her? The world between my mind and reality is still unknown to me. Still confu—

Then light emerges from the door and I’m dragged out.

I take some time to adjust my eyes to the lights until I’m continuously asked questions by Dr. Leitner. I’m seated down in one of the enclosed rooms where only he and I can talk. Being in the room still makes me uneasy.

I sigh as I nervously avert my gaze away from his face.

“You saw something new in there. Can you tell me who or what it was?” I close my eyes, thinking back to the dark room. Thinking about Luanna poking my shoulder and her wavy grey dress. The gentle and comforting smile she gave me when I admitted to being scared. I don’t have any memories of children, but perhaps she was one of them?

“A girl. That’s all. She didn’t hurt me. She just talked with me.” I say, keeping my answer vague. Dr. Leitner looks dissatisfied and I start to worry. Thankfully, he just writes it down and moves on to asking me about another hallucination, but that doesn't really help after all

"Did you see him again?"

"I did."

"Did he try to harm you?"

"Yes."

I almost choke swallowing a ball of fear.

My memories begin to flash before me and I can feel my sanity slowly deteriorate with every thought. Images from that night replay as I look at my arm. Bandages that were no longer there flash back at me like they were still there.

But they aren't.

I remember what the pain felt like. Whenever I think about it, it's always the pain because I can't forget how weak I was in that moment. Defenseless is the only word I could use to describe the horrific feeling. The feeling of being stabbed repeatedly in the stomach then in my arm. Being stabbed so much that my left arm would go numb.

Then coughing blood and gasping for air, begging for my own life to be spared as my own blood stains my shirt and hands. I regret telling the doctors what I saw; it's not like they helped. They pushed me into that dark room without anyone and let me almost be stabbed to death. Stabbed to death by my own imagination, but it was real. I know it was. 

When I came out I had to be sent to the infirmary. Even while I was there, Dr. Leitner kept asking questions. Sometimes I wish I had the assertiveness to shout "Stop asking me questions!" At his face but I never did. I'm just timid. I don't do anything and I always follow whatever order I've been told because I can't help myself. 

I've always struggled with making my own decisions. I've always followed the crowd.

And I know that.

But I refuse to be brought down nonetheless.

* * *

_"Dr. Garner stitched you back up again?"_

_"Mhm…"_

I look at Marco with the same face I've worn since I remembered being here. My expression barely ever changes at all sometimes now that I think about it. I guess it doesn't hurt to try and smile every once in a while like Marco does.

"Hey guys. Where's Reiner?" Jean says, emerging from the hallway making his way into confinement. My brain spaces out for a moment, not bothering to listen to Marco and Jean's conversation.

_'Shit. Where is Reiner?'_

I abruptly get up and run to Dr. Hunter who was looking over something on his clipboard. He notices me and adjusts his glasses.

“Yes Bertholdt is there something I can help you with?”

“Where is Reiner?”

There have been many instances where Reiner doesn't come back from examination. He mostly— if not always— ends up in the infirmary room. I'm relieved if he gets a minor injury but as of late, he's been coming back with more bandages and cuts on his chest and arms. More injuries equals more time spent in the infirmary.

And I'm worried that one day he won't come back from it.  
  


He almost died in a life-threatening experiment to see how fast he could heal with multiple major injuries. It landed him in the recovery room unresponsive for more than two weeks. The whole time I was alone. I wasn't being told anything but "He's in the recovery room" the whole time this was happening. The loneliness at night didn't help either because that's when my other hallucinations started to show up.

When Reiner finally came back, he was covered in bandages almost from head to toe. I couldn't remember every injury he had, but he had so many that he would've died were he not a normal human being. Just seeing him all beat up broke me.

And it did because I flew into a flying fit of rage.

I didn't understand what that was, but I think I do now.

"He's in the recovery room getting bandaged up. He'll be back in half an hour. Please be patient." 

I knew it. 

I knew it, I knew it, I knew it. 

I nod nervously and look down. I can only think of what he's getting bandaged up for. My body tenses up, hoping that his injuries weren't bad. Dr. Hunter puts a hand on my shoulder, assuring me that he will be okay. I want to believe him, but I don't think I should.

Only Reiner knows what I dreamt about that night.

It's the reason I'm hesitant to trust the doctors.

Because I don't know if that dream was real or not.

And as if I thought my nervousness would go away, it didn't.

Something from those nights alone without Reiner told me something that's supposed to happen today.

And it's making me more worried with every second.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Experiment is back on track! Thought I'd release the chapter today.
> 
> I know it's only been a few people, but thank you to everyone that's left kudos or bookmarked this story. It means a lot to me and I'm thrilled to know that you're enjoying it so far!
> 
> I am active on  
> [Reddit](https://www.reddit.com/user/Arya-Ender) and Discord! Shoot me a message!  
> Discord: Arya#7987
> 
> Thank you for keeping up with Experiment!


	5. Thoughts (Reiner's POV)

I kept looking up at the ceiling, trying to make my head more comfortable as I lay down in the infirmary room's bed. I look at my arms and groan at the sight of the layer of bandages covering them. Bertholdt is definitely going to freak out about this… Again.

It's not like it _hasn't_ been the first time.

_'Headache, injuries, blood loss, my arm stings; Geez my body really isn't having it today…'_ I sighed. _'It must be so exhausted from getting wounded every week or something.’_

Honestly, my body is pretty interesting to say the least. I look like I just have enhanced strength and these weird plates going down my arms and chest, but my body is pretty good at handling injuries. My body doesn’t really tend to feel pain with only a few exceptions; those being ripping off my plates and possibly more. I can heal pretty fast too. Dr. Atkinson chopped off my thumb on “accident” once and it grew back in three-ish hours. 

The only downside is that if I have many injuries, it takes me longer to heal them. If I could put it together easier, my injuries will heal simultaneously until everything’s been healed. I can’t make it focus on one injury then the next because half the time, I’m usually too exhausted to focus it. I don’t think I can actually do it though but maybe I will at some point.

Nurse Kay then comes inside wearing her usual nursing uniform. She’s a bit irresponsible sometimes, but she’s never failed to treat me when I somehow get sick. Her smile appears once again and she takes a look at my vitals.

“How are you feeling? Any better?” She asks.

“A bit. I kind of have a headache though.”

“Would you like some relief?”

“Please.”

She nods, walking over to the medicine cabinet. Her straight brown hair glistens in the infirmary’s lights. Her uniform was white with many black accents near the ends of it except the end of her shirt. Along with that, she also wore a black long-sleeved shirt under the white short-sleeved one. 

She grabs a glass from the counter and fills it with water. Handing me the medicine, I gulp it down with the water. I wipe my mouth with my fist and set it off to the side.

“You should be good to go then.” Kay says, taking a look at one of the plates that were ripped off. “Go ahead and change so I can walk you back.”

Nodding, I head inside the washroom. I take off the patient shirt to get a look at my bandages. I carefully trace my finger down the soft, slightly red material. I look around but end up confused. Where were my clothes?

“Sorry! I forgot to give you these.” Nurse Kay chuckles nervously, handing it to me.

“It’s okay. Thank you.” I reply as she shuts the door. I pick up the shirt and analyze the left corner. There was a symbol that had two curvy lines running through it accompanied by something that looked like a leaf. It pointed upwards towards a set of numbers.

Disregarding its presence, I slipped the piece of clothing onto me and felt the warm fabric make my body tingle. Taking off my pants, I slip on the new pitch black ones. Lifting up my shirt, I look at the plates running down my chest all the way to my stomach. I raise my head and look at myself in the mirror.

_‘I wonder if I’ll always look like this.’_ I thought.

Stepping out, Nurse Kay looks delighted to see me. She walks with me down the hall, humming. I look through the thick, clear glass windows and see Jean, Marco, and Bertholdt mingling. They were probably writing in those journals again. 

"Hey guys. Sorry for coming back late." I say. Everyone turns their heads and I’m first greeted by Bertholdt. He puts his soft, warm hands on my shoulders and looks at me worriedly.

“Are you okay?” He asks.

“I’m okay. Don’t worry.”

“Where are the bandages this time?”

I sigh and roll up my sleeves, showing him the bandages. Bertholdt takes a hold of one of my arms and presses his thumb down on it gently. I slightly grit my teeth. 

“S-Sorry!” He stutters.

“It’s okay Bert calm down.”

I put a hand on his shoulder comfortingly. I sighed, and looked at him straight in the eyes.

_“It’s okay. Smile, won’t you?”_

His face blushes red and I feel my own cheeks burn up slightly. Jean and Marco finally come up after their mini conversation, observing us both a few inches away.

“Bert what’s with the face?” Jean teases. 

“N-Nothing— Ah!”

Bertholdt’s eye suddenly starts to glow while Marco looks at it with fascination in his eyes. Jean jumps a little.

“Why does your eye do that?” He asks.

“I-I don’t know…” Bertholdt blushes.

“Hey, it makes you unique. No need to hide it.” I say, smiling gently at him. Bertholdt turns his gaze to me and grins slightly. “There we go!” I say happily, patting him on the back. Marco’s cheerful expression returns once more.

"Oh yeah, everyone doing okay?" I ask.

"Yeah we've been okay. Bertholdt was looking kinda sick earlier though." Marco says concerningly.

My head turns to Bertholdt. "You okay?"

"Y-Yeah…"

"Maybe you're just hungry?" Marco suggests.

"Maybe… Yeah…" 

“I wonder what we’re going to have for dinner this time!” Marco says. His eyes suddenly turned bright yellow. I chuckle gently, knowing he was happy.

Marco never really gets the chance to have a look at his eye colour, so me and Bertholdt help him write down the colours and the emotion attached to it. So far, I’ve only seen brown, yellow, blue, grey, and green. Yellow is really obvious; it just means the guy is happy. Brown in his natural eye colour I guess since it only shows up when Marco is just feeling neutral. The rest I can’t remember off the top of my head, but I know grey is when he’s scared of something like that.

“Ahhhh~ I wanna have mashed potatoes and meat again!” Marco says with delight.

“That does sound really good actually.” I say, looking amongst us.

Dr. Hunter opens the door and we all look to the right. Turning to face him, he adjusts his glasses and reads off of his clipboard.

"Dinnertime. Please make your way to the cafeteria."

* * *

We’ve been eating quietly for about fifteen minutes. We ended up having soup with crackers for dinner again. I’m not gonna complain though. It tastes decent enough for me.

I look over at Marco who’s eating happily with Jean. I decided to sit beside Bertholdt today instead of sitting in front of him. My eye takes notice of the small crumb of cracker sitting on his chin. I tap the back of his back and Bertl looks at me, confused.

“You have something on your cheek Bert.” I chuckle.

“O-Oh? Oops…”

Bertholdt laughs nervously and wipes the crumb away with a tissue. I close my eyes, sighing with a smirk on my face. Bertholdt’s such a klutzy goof sometimes. It makes him cute though.

“Are you enjoying your dinner, Jean?” Marco asks, looking at Jean.

“Yeah. It’s pretty good honestly.”

“I wonder what’s for dessert…” Bertholdt says, putting a finger on his mouth. “Cake? I’m kind of craving cake right now. Then again, ice cream or a cookie doesn’t seem too bad either.”

“You always figure out how to make me want sweets Bertholdt.” Marco sighs. I take another sip out of my soup, sighing in satisfaction. The staff is a bit on edge, but the food is good.

I guess there are positives to the negatives. 

"Hey, you guys were so interested in my powers, so why don’t you tell me about yours?" Jean says, flashing an interested smile. 

"A-Ah! Alright then." Bertholdt looks at me then at Marco before nodding. "Who wants to go first?"

"I think mine is pretty simple so I'll start." I say, crossing my arms.

"Basically, I have enhanced strength, regeneration, and pain tolerance. I've also got these weird plates that run along my arms and chest so it's like a chestplate? I'm not sure what it's made of though. The doctors don't know either but they're assuming it's my skin that turned itself into stone." 

I grab the end of my shirt and drop it on the floor. The ones on my arms were covered, so the only ones showing were the ones on my chest.

"I know they look weird. They're supposed to run down my arms all the way to my wrist but because of today's examination they uh… Got torn off. So here have a look at the ones on my chest instead."

Jean has a look at them and I tilt my head. It seemed like he wanted to get a closer look. Not like I minded though.

"You can touch them it's not gonna feel weird or anything. They just feel like rocks though." An idea pops into my head and I smirk before looking at Bertholdt.

"No seriously, you can. Ask Bertholdt. He's touched 'em before."

"I— W-What?!"

Jean bursts into laughter and a few seconds later, Marco joins him. I look at Bertholdt teasingly and he looks at me with an angry red face. I grunt as he starts to lightly punch me, but he throws a couple hard punches in there too.

"You didn't have to point that out!" He exclaims.

"Why did you touch them Bert?" Jean snorts.

"It's 'cause I asked him to." I say smugly.

"Put context!"

"Guys…! Guys stop…! My stomach is starting to hurt— Hahaha!"

Marco gasps for air as he plops his face down onto the table. Bertholdt’s all of a sudden like “Reiner noooo!” “Reiner why did you say that?!” and honestly he’s really cute like that.

Hell there are _so_ many instances where he’s cute. Too many to name haha.

“Don't say anything else!!”

“Or what? You’re gonna bonk my head harder?” I taunt.

“Yes!”

“Okay. Harder Bertholdt.”

“Ohmygodareyoudumbfucksalwayslikethis—” Jean says in one breath before inhaling loudly for more air. 

“Mhmm.. They are like this sometimes… Haha…” Marco replies.

I try to block Bertholdt’s punches, but he actually manages to punch me hard in the face. “Ow man—! Alright, alright! I’ll stop just please stop trying to beat the crap outta me!” I plead, attempting to get a hold of his arm.

Bertholdt finally stops and lets out a pout. Clearing my throat, I slip my shirt back on and wink at Bertholdt. I chuckle first before crossing my arms. “Anyway, who wants to go next?” I ask. 

"Meee!" Marco says waving his hand continuously in the air. He looks at Jean, all starry eyed which makes him avert his gaze. I was excited for Marco’s power because his was pretty cool. 

"Go ahead Marco, go ahead." He huffs.

"Give me your hand."

Marco’s jaw slams shut on Jean’s hand and a clear fluid starts to seep into the bite mark. He jerks his hand away, cursing at us. I start to laugh because Marco numbed Jean’s voice. He can’t really say anything now so he's just silently swearing at us.

"I can give you certain buffs or debuffs if that's what you wanna call it. In this case when I bit you, you became mute." Marco takes his hand again, biting down on it for a second time. Jean puts a hand on his mouth and he mumbles something to himself before sighing in relief.

"I can get rid of it too if I bite you again. Though, it wears off at a designated time. I could even poison you. There's a lot of effects to use! Maybe even more." Marco returns back to his innocent smile as his eyes flicker a bright yellow. 

“Please don’t ever do that again to me without letting me know.” Jean groans.

“But I let you know beforehand!” Marco whines.

“I can tell you’d do it again in your mischievous little eyes alright?!”

The three of us— excluding Jean— start laughing again.

"Well this is something I won’t be doing. I can also tear stuff up with my teeth. It's kind of barbaric in all honesty." Marco takes a bite out of his cracker as Jean and Bertholdt turn their heads to me. I nod at his statement.

"He isn't lying. He tore up a pillow pretty brutally once." I say. I remember seeing his jaw gnaw at the cushion like he was some sort of animal. He tore that pillow apart from head to toe. 

I then turn my head to Bertholdt. He looked a bit nervous which was understandable, so I gave him a pat on the back.

"You're up man."

"R-Right."

Bertholdt fumbles with his fingers nervously before taking a deep breath. I keep my hand on his shoulder.

"Well, you could say my powers are psychic. The most I can do right now is make rings that either push you away or slice you up. Second to that is my… Hallucinations which… Aren't exactly the best things in the world."

Bertholdt looks at us with worry in his eyes. I frown slightly and grip his shoulder. “Take your time Bert. No need to rush.” He nods, exhaling before looking back up at Jean and Marco.

“So… Does this have anything to do with what you dreamt of?” Jean asks. We turn our heads to him and his eyes look away awkwardly.

“About that…”

“Yeah, uh… Forget I mentioned it?”

“It’s okay… Well… We gotta tell you eventually, don’t we Marco?”

I look at Marco and Marco turns his head to mine.

“I suppose you’re right… I just don’t want to frighten him more.”

“It’ll be fine.”

Bertholdt takes in a deep breath before looking up at us again.

"One night… I had a really, really, really bad nightmare. It was something so frightening that it was really hard to comprehend even. When I woke up… I wouldn't stop screaming. The doctors came in and tried to pull me away. That was when I went silent. I really didn't wanna go with them… Because…"

"You don't need to disclose why, Bert. It's okay. You won't be a dick about it, right Jean?" I shoot Jean a joking but somewhat serious look at him. He chuckles before scoffing after.

"I won't. You don't have to tell me what the dream was about Bertholdt." Bertl nods his head and I start mumbling comforting words to him like "See it's okay" and "You can relax now" type of comments. 

“Anyway,” I say, trying to get his mind off the topic, “One of Bertholdt’s rings is a literal ring of fire.” Jean looks at me, astonished.

“Damn I kinda wanna see that… It sounds really cool.” He says, scratching the back of his neck.

“It does look cool.” Bertholdt says, holding one of his arms. “Though, I think it’s kind of dangerous to be near it. Actually, it’s dangerous to be near any of my rings haha…”

“Yeah. You don’t wanna get blown away a few feet back and break your leg.” I say, recalling the time where Bertholdt blew back everything in the testing room to see how big of a radius he made. The blast was so powerful that it actually managed to crack the windows which are really thick.

The cafeteria doors slide open and in comes Dr. Hunter as he makes his way towards our table. His white lab coat floats along in the air as he adjusts his glasses for the tenth time today. 

"Is everything alright?" Dr. Hunter asks, suspiciously looking at Bertholdt who nervously averts his eyes away.

"He's fine he just kinda choked on his dinner that's all." I say, looking at Bertholdt and patting him on the back. He nervously smiles and nods. We all look at Dr. Hunter, hoping he'll buy the lie.

"I see. Do you need to go to the infirmary?" 

"I-I'm fine thank you." Bertholdt dryly coughs.

"Well then, do you four want to go to the library and find some nice books to read?" We nod our heads. I was kinda getting bored of the last book I took out anyway. 

"Excellent. Follow me then. You can grab your dessert and eat it in the library, just try not to make a mess." I get up and take my tray to the front of the room to set it down on the counter before grabbing a cookie or two. The rich milky taste of chocolate delighted me as I continued to munch it down.

We walk inside the library. The smell of old paper and dust fills the room. Not a lot of people went in here. Jean’s eyes fall on the grand ol’ dictionary in the front of all the rows of bookcases. He runs over to it and starts flipping through it’s dusty pages.

"Checking out the dictionary huh?" I asked, slapping an arm over his shoulder. "There's a bunch of words in there. Whenever I can, I use em' to my advantage."

“Oh really?” Jean asks and I return a nod. I look over at Marco who was having a little book talk with Bertholdt. Ah, they get along so well.

"Better look for something to read. There isn't exactly much to do here you know." I say before heading off to the back. I look around and come across something old looking. Opening it up, it looked like it had all the details about the time we call, “The 100th Long Devastation.” I flipped through a couple pages and looked through them carefully.

_“In 201X, the Radiation came first. It is thought that the radiation came from an unknown place within the universe or perhaps the sun. The Radiation was named, “Hypercharred Radiation,” which inflicted painful burns onto people and even buildings. It was said that the radiation could burn someone who even had uncovered skin.”_

I turned a couple more pages after reading.

_“It was not until 203X that the radiation started to die out. However, not too long after the events, a toxic gas substance started to take shape in the form of clouds. When it rained, the toxin would escape into the air. Since clouds don’t shrink or disappear, the toxin remains seeping out of the cloud. It is thought that the radiation had affected the clouds in some way, but scientists are still unsure of the cause.”_

“Not bad… I could learn a thing or two from this.” I close the book, holding it at my side. I then notice Jean who seemed to be talking with Dr. Hunter not too far away.

“What did Dr. Hunter want?” I ask, walking over to him.

“I found this book but it didn’t seem like a regular book. It had a bunch of fancy writing in it but it was kind of hard to read. I can’t read cursive very well.” I let out an “oh?” before letting him continue.

“It looked like someone wrote that stuff down. Like a diary type of thing? Dr. Hunter said it was a personal journal that was accidentally left in there but whatever it was, he took it away from me.”

I nod, looking back at Dr. Hunter before turning my head back to Jean. “I wonder if it was important.” I say, resting my chin on my fist. Jean shrugs his shoulders.

“I don’t know really.” Is all he says.

Marco calls out our names and before going to meet up with him, Jean and I exchange glances again.

“I wonder what Marco wants.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I decided to switch up the perspectives so it won't be in the original Jean, then Marco, then Reiner, then Bertholdt order lol. I figured that it wouldn't do the future chapters of my story any good.
> 
> Thanks for reading!


	6. Dreams (Marco's POV)

_ "How are you feeling?" I ask. _

_ "A little better… You said you wanted to read this one right?" _

_ "And you wanted to read this one!" _

I chuckle as I hand Bertholdt the book I was reading. We swap books quite often. Bertholdt can be a real bookworm sometimes. He always manages to find really interesting books about the world or stories about it and I hand him works of fiction that he absolutely loves. He's pretty chill. Though, I still worry about what he saw in that dream.

I open the book handed to me and I gasp. The pictures in this one were so detailed and even coloured. I trace my hand over the houses that ran alongside a stream of water called a river. The rest of the area was green with grass and trees surrounding the perimeter. It'd be nice to see all of this. It all just looked so beautiful.

Flipping the page, my heart sinks a little to find that the place was now torn down. The only remains were the mutations that chose to stick around which I should have expected. Well, that's what the book said. It's still not all that bad though. From the other books I read, people still lived up there. They really did. They were probably just stuck in a secluded space like us.

Turning my head, I find Jean and Reiner come over a few seconds after I called them.

"Find anything you want to read guys?" I ask Jean and Reiner.

"Haha not really. Any recommendations?"

"I don't even know where to start." Jean sighs.

I look at the book Bertholdt gave me and hand it to Jean, deciding to share it. At first, he looks a little confused because the book has no title. I giggle and turn the page. I watch as his eyes flicker a bright aqua colour. I had to admit, it was a pretty shade of blue-green.

"This is a… Pretty interesting book... Surprisingly." Jean says, flipping through the pages. "This is the world?"

"Mhm! It looks great, doesn't it?" I recall the book's realistic images, but I start to wonder if we'll ever get to see something besides these grey and silver metal walls. Maybe one day when this is all over? It's just… I could actually see myself in those places in my dreams. I couldn't tell if they were real or… 

"It doesn't look like this anymore though, doesn't it?" Jean asks, handing the book back to me. 

"Well… Maybe in some places?" 

"Seriously?"

"We only know when the doctors choose to let us out here." I say. Bertholdt looks at me with his head hung low. 

"Will that ever happen…?" He says, his tone of voice empty with no sign of hope or positive emotions. "We're here because… We're different. We don't know what we're even capable of. They'll only let us out when we have it under control."

"So we just have to wait then right?" Jean asks.

"That's the problem…" Bertholdt says, his face looking sorrowful.

_ "I don't know how long it'll take."  _

I tilt my head down, thinking of what he just said. We are different. That's why we're here. It's for our own good so we don't end up hurting anyone else. I look at Jean's hands then imagine a mirror with my own reflection. If we were out there alone, someone could have tried to kill us. They could have thought we were like the poor mutated teenagers who lost their lives to the disaster and just kill us in an instant. No one in this world would see us the same way the doctors do…

Would they?

_ "Hey guys." _

I jump at the sound of Reiner's sudden voice. He gives me a look, wondering why I was so startled all of a sudden.

"You alright?" He asks.

"Yeah. I was just lost in my own thoughts."

"Well, I wanted to show you all something. I know I said that I didn't find anything earlier, but I did." Reiner holds up a worn out book. It looked historical which quickly drew my interest. He flipped through a couple pages before stopping on one.

"The doctors don't tell us much about the outside world and how it came to be, but I don't think it would hurt to learn it." Reiner says, pointing to a picture of a disfigured being. "Those are the mutant things. It's probably what we would have turned into if we didn't have that genetic coding or whatever." 

I nod, looking at the poor person's body. Part of their face was missing and the entirety of their flesh, bones, and skin were burnt to a charcoal-black. You wouldn't believe that it was actually still living and functioning— to a certain degree of course. It also makes me wonder who these people were before and how many of them could have been like us.

It turns out, not a lot. If we're the only four here, we must have a really rare genetic coding. I feel bad knowing that deceased people are probably looking at us right now, wishing they could be like us. 

Maybe a fifth person could come? If Jean is here now, that must mean more people are starting to become like us. Maybe people won't be so afraid of us anymore when we do get out of here!

"I'll let you guys know if I see anything else interesting in here." Reiner says, closing the book and tucking it between his arm and ribcage. I nod and smile gently.

"Great!"

* * *

I look at the clock, wondering when we'd be asked to go to sleep. I take the book I was reading earlier and place it back into one of the drawers. It was 9:30 PM and we had about 30 minutes before going to bed. Opening the drawer, I take out the pajamas issued to us by the doctors and make my way to the bathroom to brush my teeth and change my clothes.

Looking into the mirror, I find that my eye colour didn't have any kind of change while I brushed my teeth. It was just brown; my natural eye colour. After brushing, I splashed my face with cool water, getting rid of the oily feeling on my face. I run a finger down the stitches on my face and look at my reflection.

_ 'It must be nice to not have these stitches binding me together…' _

I change into my pajamas and walk out of the bathroom. Jean walks up to me and I yawn.

"Hey… Um… Where do I get those?" He asks shyly.

"They're in the drawer there." I point to the cabinet with multiple slots.

"Thanks." He runs off to grab the clothes and disappears into the bathroom. I sit down next to Bertholdt who was already sleeping peacefully on the ground. A few minutes later, I turn around and see Jean emerge from the bathroom. He sits down next to me and pulls the blanket up to his knees.

"It's cold as hell here…" He says, shivering lightly. 

"You'll be fine." I say reassuringly.

We stay quiet for a moment and I can feel myself already drift off to sleep. Jean pokes my shoulder gently as I open my eyes and turn my head to face him. Rubbing my eyes, I yawn and sit up straight.

"What's up?" I ask, my voice tired and bored.

"Do you get dreams like Bertholdt's?" He asks, leaning his head against the metal wall.

"I get dreams but… None of them have been like Bertholdt's." I watch my own memories replay inside my head as I try to recall the broken dreams. It was kind of like picking pieces of broken glass up and trying to put it back together to create a glass image. Lots of the dreams I had seemed innocent. It didn't seem like anything bad happened. I look over at the sleeping Bertholdt and sigh. Reiner had disappeared into the washroom probably to do his things so all that's left was me and Jean.

"I wanna be honest with you, okay?" Jean says, breaking my chain of thoughts. I turn my head towards him, pensive.

"Sure. What do you wanna tell me?" I can't bring myself to not look at his eyes. They were just so beautiful. I'd never seen my own eye colour often, so I couldn't help but look at the comforting cyan glistening gently.

"I'm scared. And nervous." He says, burying his face into his knees. 

"I mean, you were too right?"

"Yeah." I say, hugging my legs.

"I don't know just… This place kinda makes me feel uneasy. I haven't even seen the shit you guys ended up going through and it's already making me anxious… Do you guys ever have any peaceful times here?"

I ponder at his question. When was the last time I could remember me, Reiner, and Bertholdt not traumatized? Thinking on it more, there were a few instances. The time we spent messing around in our room playing a board game which got us all bankrupt except for Bertholdt, building a pillow fort with whatever blanket and pillows we had, it was actually great. 

It makes us feel like family in a way.

"Yeah we do. We played a game involving money and property and built a pillow fort once." 

"Oh good it isn't so depressing then?"

"I guess not?"

Even I didn't know how to answer that. I just thought of it as the doctors being our "guardians" and occasionally being hard on us.

But then again, tearing off Reiner's plates and traumatizing Bertholdt is more than being hard on us…

"I hope you don't mind, but what's the deal with your stitches? Like, why are you sliced in half? Did Dr. Garner ever tell you?" 

"I don't think she ever told me, but I remember the nurse in the infirmary telling me that one of the mutations outside actually bit me in half. It was happening when my body was taking in the radiation as well, so it was happening at the same time."

"Geez. Did it think you were food or something?"

"Do I look like food?"

Jean rolls his eyes and punches my shoulder gently. I laugh, pushing his head away from me. He loses his balance for a brief moment and accidentally lands his elbow on Bertholdt's arm. He mumbles slightly before eventually going back to sleep.

"Thanks for almost waking him up." Jean scoffs.

"You're welcome!" I say happily. 

We both look at the ground in silence. I don't understand why, but I felt something warm burn up in my cheeks. Jean taps my shoulder and I turn my gaze to his.

"Your eyes are pink. What's with that?" He asks.

"I don't know. Must be a new colour." 

I wonder what that meant. I looked at Jean's eyes to find that his were a pair of cyan once more. The colours in his eyes were far more prettier than mine, even though I can't see my eyes myself.

“Hey.” Jean says, his face turning a little red. I tilt my head at his sudden call.

“I… Just wanna say thanks.”

“Thanks for what?”

“T-Thanks for trying to be friends with me.” He stutters. My brain is left a little confused. 

“Are we not friends?” I ask.

“S-Seriously? We are you idiot! I was thanking you for speaking to me and trying to be my friend…”

My heart jumps a little and I smile softly. “Well, you’re welcome then.”

The two of us sit in silence for a moment. I look back at his face and smile gently. Jean adverts his eyes and I chuckle. A minute passes and Reiner comes out of the bathroom, stretching his arms. Jean moves to the opposite side of me and Reiner slides into the spot beside Bertholdt, yawning gently.

"Tired?" I ask, yawning myself.

"Yeah…" Reiner looks down at Bertholdt and smiles. A smirk appears on my face and I giggle. I could tell something was up between those two. They are really adorable together.

The lights turn off and the automated voice notifies us that we should now be going to bed. I turn my head to Reiner who shuts his eyes. "Guess we should sleep." He yawns, lying down. 

"Night you guys."

"Goodnight."

"Night."

I lie down and wrap the blanket around my body and try to keep what warmth I had together in the ice cold room. I look at Jean through the darkness and whisper quietly to him.

"Goodnight." I say, smiling softly.

"Night." He says and rolls off to the side.

I sink the side of my face back into my pillow and shut my eyes. I could feel myself slowly falling asleep as my thoughts drowned my consciousness into the dark abyss.

* * *

_ "I can't sleep again…" _

_ "It's alright honey. Come here" _

_ I watch myself crawl into the warm furnace like bedding where the woman would sleep. Looking at her face through this vision of what I assume is myself, I believe it was my parent. My mother perhaps? I snuggle up to her warm chest, landing my head on it. I feel her fingers run through my neat black locks of hair and close my eyes. _

_ "Goodnight, Marco." _

_ "Goodnight mom." _

_ My younger self falling asleep, the vision takes me to another scene within seconds. I'm holding a book I had made with various doodles and words slapped onto it. I hear my mother's voice come near and I look up at her.  _

_ "What's that Marco?" She asks curiously. _

_ "It's a doctor's notebook! I wanna be a doctor when I grow up!" _

_ My mother chuckles and rubs my cheek gently. _

_ "I'm sure you'd make a great doctor, Marco." _

_ The motion sways and I find myself reading a book on the plague. The scene wasn't very clear, so I couldn't make out anything in the book.  _

_ "Maybe one day I can find a cure for all of this!" I exclaim. _

_ "Be safe while you travel Marco. Your father and I are so proud of you.'" _

_ The shards of visions start to collide together, almost becoming messy. I look at my mother, then at my father. I can feel myself grow concerned as I see tears start to build up in my mother's eyes and a frown on my father. _

_ "Mom? Dad?" _

_ "Marco…" _

_ I stare at them blankly, waiting for a response. _

_ "It's nothing, son. Don't worry about it. Do well and stay safe. We love you." _

_ I'm suddenly transferred to a nighttime setting, walking alone on a lonely path as an unknown figure approaches me. _

_ "Who are you?" _

_ "Are you lost?" _

_ "No, I'm just making my way to a motel nearby." _

_ "I see." _

_ And in a moment everything begins to escalate. _

_ "Well I'll— H-Hey! Let go!" _

_ I feel my body get pushed to the ground, my bag full of books, food, and money splattering onto the gravel ground. Was he going to rob me? _

_ "What are you going to do to me?" _

_ "Just be quiet and don't worry." _

_ The scene turns to black and I hear distinct voices in the background. _

_ "Subject #3: Marco Bodt.' _ "

_ "Birthday: June 16th, 21XX. Age: 16 years old. Gender: Male." _

_ Amongst the voices, I feel a cut running from the right into my stomach as I hear the sounds of a whirring blade working. _

_ "Do you think he'll still live after that?" _

_ "Most likely and if not, he dies." _

_ A sharp pain suddenly runs through my body as I scream.  _

_ My right side starts to sting uncontrollably. _

_ The next thing I know, I've woken up and I'm screaming. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for keeping up with Experiment!
> 
> Next chapter will be either Monday or Tuesday of next week :D


	7. Fear (Jean's POV)

When I first came here, I didn’t expect anything like Bertholdt, Reiner, and Marco described would happen. The chance of it was a long shot, but I couldn‘t believe my eyes when I suddenly woke up in the middle of the night.

I froze the second Marco started wailing in pain.

“It hurts, it hurts…” Marco whines, gripping his stitches tightly. Panicked, I place two hands on his shoulders, trying to get a hold of his consciousness.

"Marco?! Marco! Are you okay?!" I shouted.

"It hurts so much…" He sobs.

"What does?! What does?!"

I felt something warm cover my knees. A metallic scent started to fill the air. My nose shriveled up at the smell. My anxiety began to worsen when I saw blood pooling out of Marco's body. My jaw dropped, horrified at the sight. He was going to die if he kept bleeding.

"Oh holy shit— okay Marco calm down." I said, biting my lip. His clothes were drenched and the blood just kept seeping out the wound between his poor body. The white blankets and sheets were getting stained too. I frantically placed my hand where the wound was, trying to stop it from coming out. I noticed that it just felt like mush before looking down and finding some black plastic-like pieces on the ground.

He was pulling out his fucking stitches.

I didn’t understand why. I didn't understand why he was doing this to himself. I know he told me he hated having them on, but why was he ripping them off? Was it really hurting him that bad? 

“Marco!” Reiner yells, grabbing a hold of his wrist and pinning it on the wall. "Marco please calm down!"

Bertholdt is trying to get the bleeding to stop, but it won't work. I was surprised at how much blood there was coming out of his body. It looked like enough to fill a bucket, maybe more. 

“Marco, man, please listen. Whatevers hurting you, me, Jean, and Bertholdt will be there to help you out. Calm down, you’re gonna be okay. We’re gonna make sure they don’t do anything to hurt you. Just listen to us right now!” Reiner yells, looking at him straight in the eye. I grit my teeth as tears start to build up in my eyes. I didn't… want him to die.

“Reiner! T-They’re coming!” Bertholdt yelled, trying to hide the bloody sheets and blankets. 

"W-Who is?!" I say, my voice cracking slightly.

"The doctors!"

I look back down at Marco. What were they going to do to him? After hearing what Bertholdt had said about his own eventful night, the same was happening right now. The only difference was Marco was in Bertholdt's place. 

From what I could piece together, I wouldn't say these guys are the most understanding type of people. They just take one look at us and get the results in. I guess I can't really blame them. It isn't their fault. Though, it explains why Reiner holds a grudge and Bertholdt is frightened. Their carelessness might just lead to their demise.

Wait, no, don't think about it right now. It's not that important.

“W-What should I do with the bedsheets...?” Bertholdt asks.

“There’s no use… We can’t just rinse them out.” Reiner says, defeated.

"J-Just help me stop the bleeding or slow it down at least!" I shout to the two. Reiner and Bertholdt nod, helping Marco lie down easily. I notice his tears becoming red as they mixed with the blood on his face. Marco puts a hand on his face, gripping his head. Out of fear of him ripping off the stitches binding his head together, I pulled his hand away immediately.

"Marco no…" I say, sobbing. "Don't do that... Please..."

"But Jean…" Marco whines. " It really hurts…"

“Just take it easy Marco…” Bertholdt tearfully says, putting a gentle hand on his shoulder before looking at me reassuringly.

“Marco, what hurts?” Reiner asks, kneeling next to him.

“My… My right…”

“Shhhh… C-Calm down okay? It’ll go away soon, I promise.” I stutter as my own voice starts breaking once again. I look at the colour of Marco's eyes; a standard grey tone. Reiner pulls one of the blood-soaked blankets halfway up to Marco’s split chest. He holds the corner gently and smiles through the pain.

“What are the doctors going to do to him…?” I ask, turning my head to Reiner. His face looked really tense as he tried to come up with a response.

“I don’t know how to stop it from bleeding… The doctors are gonna have to stitch him back up though. I just… Don't really know how. Marco's body is really complicated. He's not dead, but he isn't really alive either.”

"So… Half dead half alive kind of thing...?" I ask.

"S-Sure." Reiner sighs. "I'm confused as to how blood even manages to circulate through his body. It should be spilling all over the place…"

Marco was now closing his eyes. I shut mine tightly, hoping that he was just exhausted and had to fall asleep or something like that. I run my fingers through his neat black hair, caressing the back of his head gently. Tears start to build up in my eyes again. I couldn't believe that I was already feeling so close to him.

Was I crying cause I was scared? Yeah.

But I was also crying ‘cause he's my friend and I didn't want him to die.

I think back to the first time I met Marco. I was freaked out… Even scared of him. But he just smiled at me, not giving a shit about what I thought. He's too pure for this kind of crap. He just never seemed to snap at anything and I just couldn't understand why this was happening to him. I bite my lip and feel a tear stream down my face at the thought of his smile.

“Reiner! The doctors are here…!” Bertholdt called out, squinting at the bright light that came from the guards’ flashlights. I didn't pay anymore attention to him because all my focus was on Marco. I kept looking at his stomach and chest, counting how many times it went up and how many times it went down. Reiner puts a hand on my shoulder and I look up at him teary-eyed.

“Look after him.” He spoke.

I paused for a moment before nodding my head.

"S-Shhhh… You're going to be okay… M-Marco… Just h-hang in there okay?" I whispered quietly to him. I felt like I was talking to myself.

The distant voices and orders mix up in my head and ultimately they just cancel out. I grab a hold of Marco's hand, squeezing it tightly. His hand felt cold like it did earlier this morning. I couldn't tell if that was 'cause of the blood loss or the fact that his right side was cold 24/7. I just need to know that he's alive.

_ "Jean, this is Dr. Holt. I need you to step away from Marco, okay?" _

Turning my head, I see Dr. Holt's slender figure towering above me. She puts a gentle hand on my shoulder and pulls my body towards her.

"I know you're frightened, but this is the best option so no one else gets hurt. Please listen." I look at Reiner and Bertholdt who were standing against the wall a few inches away from me and Marco. Reiner takes note of me and sighs, nodding a second after.

Looking back down at Marco, I didn't want to leave him. But I really had no other choice. I turn my head to Dr. Holt, ready to ask her a question.

"Will he live…?" I say weakly.

"We don't know."

The tears start flowing down my cheeks like the river Marco had shown me earlier today. My hand started to pulse weirdly. It felt like I was going to make a crystal in my hand again— no,  _ more  _ than just a crystal. Some kind of unknown energy was building up in my hand and it felt like it was about to explode at any second now.

I couldn't describe how I felt. I wasn't exactly angry, but I know it was something really emotional as it happened. But I was confused. I didn't understand why they didn't know if Marco would live or not. Maybe I'm expecting too much of them? After all, they're still finding out what else we can do so maybe I shouldn't be so bratty…

Odd enough, felt a sharp pain run down my shoulder a few seconds after. I turned my head to Reiner and Bertholdt. For some reason, Bertholdt had his hands cover his mouth and Reiner was being dragged away with him. I flashed a confused look until my head and eyes started to feel heavy. I get one more glimpse at Marco's face before finally blacking out. 

  
  


My eyes weakly open again reminding, me of the time I first woke up here. Instead of waking up on the ground, I woke up in a bed. The bright light greeted my fully awake consciousness and I sat upright in a flash. Dr. Holt looks up at me, sitting on the nearby chair with her legs crossed together. She sighs, pointing to the glass cup of water. I take it, gulping the fluid down my dry throat.

"Are you alright?" She asks.

"I'm… Fine." I say, wiping my mouth with my sleeve. I look at my shirt and hands, finding that they were now clean. All of the blood that spilled out of Marco's body was gone.

Wait,  _ Marco _ .

"Where is Marco?" I ask worriedly.

"Dr. Garner is stitching him up." She replies, yawning.

"Is he okay?" 

Dr. Holt lets out a tired sigh. I feel myself get slightly annoyed. It seemed like she wasn't interested in answering my questions. Gritting my teeth, I forward the question again.

"Is he okay—?"

"Let me ask you some questions and then I'll answer yours."

I glare at her in frustration. She returns the same glare, except I feel intimidated so I stop and look away. Dr. Holt looks down at her clipboard before looking up at me. I felt sweat drip down my cheek.

"You passed out. Did you feel anything before you did?" Dr. Holt puts a hand under her chin as she looks at me, waiting for a response. I think back to before I blacked out. My body started to tingle weirdly and my right hand was pulsing, especially in the middle where the crystal pane was lodged into my hand.

"I was… Tensing up. My hand felt like it would make a crystal again. But at the same time… It felt like something else." Dr. Holt nods, writing it down on her clipboard.

"Any idea of what you'd make Instead?"

"I-I don't know… But my shoulder hurt before I blacked out."

"I see."

Dr. Holt stands up and walks over to the cabinet to look for something. "Do you want to eat something?" She asks, grabbing a wrapped bar. 

"No thanks. I'm not hungry." I sigh, lying my head down onto the pillow again. I shut my eyes, trying to think of something else. Dr. Holt sits back down next to me and I look back up at her.

"Dr. Holt… Will Marco be okay?" I hear her let out another irritated sigh.

"He will be okay. I know things here are not exactly the best. I know things here are frightening for you. This is just how it has to go. It's for your own good so one day, you can go up there without people having to kill you. I hope you can understand that and I hope the other three understand as well. Satisfied?"

I blink twice, thinking about the response she gave me. Maybe this is for our own good. Maybe this is the best that they can do to handle it. I grit my teeth. I'm thinking about too many "maybe" possibilities that don't have much information to be proven true. I feel Dr. Holt place a hand on my shoulder and I look up at her.

"You can go back in 5 minutes." She says, taking a sip of water. “I just need something from you. Another crystal, please?”

I look down at my hand and oddly enough, another crystal pops out.

  
  


“He’ll be okay Jean.”

“I know… I'm just worried.”

I push my face into the clean pillow, sighing heavily. I can feel Reiner's eyes scan my body as he exhaled sharply. He looks up at the ceiling and looks down at his hands.

"You okay? I mean physically."

"Yeah I guess. My shoulder hurts for some weird reason though."

I rub the sore area. It was the same arm that had my pulsing hand. I rubbed my eyes. They were pretty sore from the crying earlier. My whole body felt like shit.

"Hey, Bertholdt? Reiner?" The two look up at me as I called their names. I clenched the blanket tightly.

"Yeah? What is it?"

"Do you trust the doctors?"

Reiner sighs and Bertholdt looks down. I turn my head to the right. I know I asked something stupid, but I wanted to know what they thought.

"It's complicated on my side…" Bertholdt says, exhaling sharply. "For me, I don't understand why they decided to just keep me locked in that room after my outburst… They should have let me calm down, but they didn't. I guess I'm not hesitant when it comes to other things like why we're here. I'm more worried about going into an experimentation room with them again."

I nod, turning my head to Reiner who also nods at Bertholdt's statement. "Yeah. I'm just doing what I can to protect you guys. I'd say my reasoning is the same and to be honest, Dr. Atkinson kinda pisses me off sometimes." Reiner says, letting out a chuckle.

"What's the deal with you telling me not to trust them then Bert?"

Bertholdt rubs his chin as a lightbulb appears over his head. "Remember um… My hallucinations? Well, I think that's what it wanted to warn me about. Me going into that room not too long after." 

"Damn. So you can predict the future and stuff like that?" I ask curiously.

"More or less, yeah."

"Do you guys think Marco is okay?" I ask. Bertholdt and Reiner look at each other with uncertainty before looking back at me.

"We hope. In case you forgot, Marco's body is really complex and different from ours. There's a good chance that he will be okay though. Remember, we aren't like normal humans." Reiner says.

"From what I can remember, Marco's heart beats really weirdly and his blood circulates unnaturally. I think there's a thin clear thing that prevents his bodily fluids from actually spilling out all over the place. When he ripped out his stitches though, he must have accidentally ripped that part open too. Again, really complicated."

I yawn, trying to make myself more comfortable while lying down. I sighed heavily. When was Marco going to come back? 

"I wonder what it was like for us before we turned into… This…" Bertholdt says. I look down at my hands and try to imagine them without the glass stuck onto it. I think about Reiner, Bertholdt, and Marco, wondering what they looked like before this.

"We had parents or some kind of guardian didn't we?" Reiner asks me and Bertholdt.

"I think so… They probably died from the radiation when it hit us." Bertholdt says, frowning.

"Wouldn't they have survived if they had the coding like us?" I ask.

"Yeah but I don't even know if they had it to begin with. I don't know any of that science shit." Reiner chuckles.

"I wonder what my parents looked like… I can't really think of a face or anything right now." I sigh, wrapping the blanket over my ice cold body.

"Me too…" Bertholdt looks at Reiner and his eye starts to glow. Flustered, he hides it away.

"Geez, relax Bertholdt. You'll be fine." Reiner chuckles.

"Why does his eye glow?" I ask.

"We don't really know, but he does it a lot when he's flustered. Though, that kind of disproves my theory because this guy right here had a full on blushing frenzy but his eye didn't glow once." 

Bertholdt sighs, rolling his eyes. He hides his face with the blanket while his eye continues to glow bright red. I suddenly hear the door slide open from the right.

I felt my heart skip a beat.

“Marco!” I call out, getting up and coming to his aid. He looked so tired and broken down. Why the hell did the doctors just take him inside without any help? I let him lean on my shoulder while Reiner helped him on the other side. I saw Bertholdt arranging the bed so Marco could lie down easily.

“Thanks…” Marco weakly whispered.

“You’re welcome.” I say.

After laying Marco down, I slipped in beside him. He seemed to be okay which was a relief. Marco groans slightly and opens his eyes. His chocolate eyes meet my dull light brown ones.

"Are you okay?" I ask concerningly.

"Y-Yeah… Just tired…" He mumbles. I grab his blanket and pull it up more to his neck. His warm smile shows up again and it causes me to smile too. I suddenly hear Reiner chuckle from the side and we turn our attention to him.

"What's so funny?" I ask.

"Sorry. Did I ruin your moment?"

"I— Excuse me???" 

Reiner continues to chuckle and Bertholdt ends up joining in. I look at Marco, confused but all he does is smile at me. His expression suddenly changes and he tries to sit up..

“There’s something I gotta… Tell you guys.” Marco says, leaning his tired frame against the cold lab wall.

“Save it for tomorrow, alright?” Reiner yawns.

“It’s important… Really, really important.” Marco argues.

"Reiner's right Marco. You're probably super exhausted." I say, trying to get him to lie back down again.

“Okay….” He whispers.

"We're glad you're okay." Reiner says.

"Yeah… You really scared us." I huff.

Marco nods, closing his eyes and sighing gently. I feel his hand gently hold my wrist just like the event from earlier. My cheeks start to burn and my hand covers my mouth. 

"You two look like you already wanna sleep with each other." Reiner teases. I roll my eyes and shoot him a glare.

"Mmm… If you think we're cute… Have a look at yourself and Bertholdt. After all… He did touch your chest in the changing room after your shower…" All our heads turn to Marco leaving us shocked from his remark. I start to laugh and Bertholdt retreats under the blanket while Reiner begins to blush himself.

"First Reiner now you too Marco?!" Bertholdt whines.

"Sorry…!"

I look up at the clock, despite it being dark. I was able to get a sense of what time it was though. 1:38 AM. We sure had been up for a while… Reiner and Bertholdt lie down next to each other. It'd be best to go to sleep right now.

As I lie down, Marco turns his head slowly and looks at me. His face almost looked remorseful. “Jean… I’m… Sorry about you having to see that. I know it’s only been your first day here and… I’m sorry if it was overwhelming for you.” My heart sinks a little and I grab his hand tightly.

“N-No don’t apologize.” I stammer. “I’m honestly just glad that you’re okay. Don’t you remember what I said? You were the first person who actually wanted to talk to me so… I should be thanking you for making me feel more comfortable and not so lonely here.”

I hear Reiner let out an “aww” and I hiss sharply at him, hitting the back of his head. I hear Bertholdt and Marco laugh and I can only roll my eyes and groan. Pulling the blankets up to my chest, I lie back down to get ready to finally go to sleep.

“Goodnight guys.”

“Goodnight.”

“Night.”

“Goodnight…”

I sigh and shut my eyes gently, finally letting me rest and relax. I opened my eyes for a second to check the clock but it was too dark to see it. I sweep some more of the blanket under my body and set my arm under the soft pillow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Y'all's comments really be making my day :')
> 
> Remember, the story updates every week on either Monday or Tuesday! (Or Wednesday depending on where you live)
> 
> Thank you once again for keeping up with Experiment!


	8. Can We Play? (Bertholdt's POV)

My eyes slowly open to the sound of the alarm planted somewhere in the room. I yawn, sitting up before looking around to see if the others have already woken up before me. Apparently they already had. When I looked back up, Jean, Marco, and Reiner were all looking at me. I felt my eyes grow heavy, almost closing on them.

“Hey Bert. Time to get up.” Reiner says as I grumble. I was so sleepy… I would have fallen asleep again if Jean didn’t shake my head awake. I groaned and eventually stood up. I rubbed my right eye and sighed. I was a little confused when Marco and Reiner started to laugh and Jean looked confused and disgusted at the same time.

“Is something wrong?” I asked.

“Your eye’s glowing again.” Marco says cheerfully.

“A-Ah…”

I chuckle nervously and put my hand over my eye again to get it to stop. I was relieved to see that Marco regained his strength and seemed to have been functioning properly. 

Reiner steps in front of me and I jump back slightly, a little startled by his presence. He puts his hands on his hips with that usual smirk of his stuck onto his face.

“Remember Bert,” He says in a gentle voice. “Your eye is unique. No doubt about it. Don’t be shy to show it off.”

Blushing, I nod and he gives out a satisfied “Good!” and pats me on the shoulder. Jean puts a hand on his hip, which I’m guessing will soon be his signature stance even if he’s only been here for two days. He looks at Marco, talking about something. He seems to be whispering it, so I can't hear what he's saying. But I have some kind of idea what it might be. I wouldn't be surprised if it had something to do with me and Reiner again.

We turn our heads to find Dr. Hunter entering the room. Looking up at the clock, I only realized it would now be breakfast.

“Good morning. How are you feeling Marco?” 

“A bit better… Thank you.”

Dr. Hunter nods, writing down the information on his clipboard. I look at Marco and he smiles gently at me. 

"You all must be hungry. Let's go to the cafeteria." Nodding, I follow Dr. Hunter along with the rest of the group down the hallway. My eyes turn to Jean who was widely fascinated with the whole structure of the lab. I smile poignantly. I remember when I used to be like that; Just curious and not…

Scarred? 

Still, I feel bad for Jean. He had to see something frightening and he just got here.

"What do you think Marco wants to tell us?" Reiner whispers.

"I don't know…"

I jump slightly when Dr. Hunter looks back at me with his calm— but sometimes terrifying— demeanour. It's not that he actually did something to scare us, but more like he gives you a sense of him being a very, very good listener. If I'm not careful, he might pick it up and it'll only make us seem more suspicious. 

Dr. Hunter stops to look at his device before turning to face us. "I've been notified that they're still cooking. Where would you four like to go?" He asks, putting one hand on his hip. I exchange looks with the rest of the group, unsure of what we wanted to do to pass the time. Marco points a finger up in the air.

"Can we go to the environment room? Please?"

"Sure. Come along with me then." Marco smiles happily as we walk down the hallway. Jean brings a question to the table not too long after.

"What's in there?" He asks.

"Remember those trees and stuff in the book I showed you?" Marco says, tilting his head.

"Yeah...?"

"Well, that's what's in there!" Marco exclaims. "It's really peaceful… It has a small pond too. I can't remember if it had anything special in it though… I only went there once or twice."

"I'm pretty sure there are… Frogs? Turtles?" I say, looking at Reiner.

"Oh shit. Not the fucking frogs." He sighs.

"Why what's wrong with them?" Jean snickers

"Last time I checked I don't think Reiner likes frogs." Marco teases.

"Marco I swear to God…" He chuckles angrily. Me and Jean start laughing while Marco tries to not get slapped by Reiner.

"Bert why did you have to bring that up?"

"I-It wasn't intentional I swear!"

Jean's laughter filled the hallway in no time. I end up chiming in with a light chuckle. All I can really say is that it's payback for embarrassing me at lunch yesterday. 

"Okay, no more talking about frogs." Reiner grumbles, facepalming. 

"Come inside. I'll let you know when breakfast is ready." Dr. Hunter says, opening the door to the room. Immediately, I could hear water splashing into the pond. The smell of cool, fresh air hit me instantly. I took a breath of it, exhaling heavily.

"Jean! Look! The pond!" Marco grabbed a hold of Jean's wrist, leading him away to the back of the room.

"I'm coming Marco take it easy or you'll trip and hurt yourself!" Jean shouted as he was dragged away. Marco recovered really fast to the point where he was back to his normal self. I chuckled before feeling something tap my shoulder. Turning around, it was Reiner.

"Wanna sit down?" He asked.

"Sure." I replied, smiling.

I plopped myself down onto the bench. My eyes scanned the bright shades of green covering the room before looking up at the tree in the middle. A few birds were up there and I could see a little bowl made of sticks on one of the branches. I think it's a bird's nest that had a couple eggs inside them.

Reiner placed his hands behind his head and crossed his legs. He looked at me silently and smiled. I couldn't help but return a grin as well. I suddenly heard something going on near the pond and it turns out Marco had taken one of the turtles _out_ of the pond. The noise however came from Jean who seemed a bit startled.

"It's okay Jean! He won't bite!" Marco chuckled.

"Why is it so big?!" Jean exclaimed.

Me and Reiner chuckled at the pair. "It doesn't bite Jean quit being a wuss!" Reiner teased from afar.

"Sure I can bring over one of the frogs then and see how that goes!" 

"Like you have the balls to even bring one up here."

I laughed, putting a hand over my mouth to try and contain my laughter. I looked at Reiner before suddenly yawning. I guess I'm still tired.

"You really love to sleep don't you?" Reiner asks.

"Mm… I guess so…" I reply, leaning my head on his left shoulder. I shut my eyes, letting his arm wrap around my cold body. My eyes suddenly felt heavy as I struggled to keep them open. It wouldn't be bad to have a short 5 minute nap maybe…

When my eyes opened however, I could have sworn I saw a little girl walking around the garden with another person. A few seconds later, I could see her make a gesture that asked me to come follow her. My mind went blank for a moment and I could feel myself falling asleep.

Was that Luanna? The girl I saw yesterday?

"Bert? Bertholdt?" Reiner called, causing me to snap awake. I blinked, looking back at the place I last saw her and the unknown figure accompanying her. I felt Reiner's hand push my face to look at him. 

"You okay? You kinda spaced out for a second."

"Y-Yeah I just…"

In the corner of my eye, I saw her again, but this time she was playing in the bushes. I heard a faint giggle come her way then she suddenly looked at me. I could hear Reiner trying to get my attention again, but I was too focused on the girl.

"Bertho—"

"I see— D-Do you see her…?"

Reiner stared at me blankly. "No…? What are you talking about?" He asked. He thought for a moment before talking again. "Is it your hallucinations again?"

"Well… Sure… B-But this one doesn't hurt me. I'll tell you about her later." Reiner nods before ruffling my hair. I chuckle and try to get him to stop.

"Reiner!" Jean yells, running towards us. 

"What is it?" Reiner replies.

"Catch!" 

Jean suddenly throws something towards Reiner. When I looked down, it was one of the frogs that were in the pond. 

"God get that away—" Reiner exclaimed, quickly running behind the bench. I laughed gently, picking up the creature. Its small eyes looked up at mine and I touched the top of the frog's head lightly. I looked back at Reiner with the animal still in my hand.

"It won't throw up on you." I chuckled.

"It might." He argued.

_"That's_ why you're so freaking worked up over a frog?!" Jean exclaimed in shock. "I had no idea."

"Exactly and their puke is fucking disgusting." Reiner rolled his eyes while me, Jean, and Marco continued to laugh. I walked over to the pond, setting the frog back into the water and grabbing some of the liquid to clean my hands. I turned around to see Reiner, Jean, and Marco waiting for me.

"This place is really nice… Do you guys come here often?" Jean asks, placing a hand on his hip.

"Not really, actually. We don't get a lot of chances to come here which is kind of weird to me." I say, shrugging my shoulders. "Maybe we have too many instances where we end up doing tests or experiments?"

"That could be it…" Marco says, rubbing his chin. He starts to talk about something else when I suddenly notice the same figure running along the stone pavement again. I squint to get a closer look, but all the figure does is gesture at me to come follow her. Without saying a word, I run off and follow her. 

I swipe a branch out of my face and look for her small figure amongst the bushes. I turn to the right, seeing a head of hair poking out behind one of them. I walk closer and find that it was Luanna and that she was writing something in her diary. She holds it up to me, revealing the word "Hello" written on it. I take the pen she gave me from before and write a response.

_'What are you doing in here?'_ I write.

 _'Just relaxing. I told you I'd come see you again.'_ She writes, smiling at me.

I turn around to hear Reiner calling my name. He, Jean, and Marco finally catch up to me, confused as to why I abruptly ran off.

"Why did you suddenly run from us?" He asks.

"Remember the hallucination I was going to tell you about? She's right here—"

Looking behind me, Luanna is suddenly gone. I searched for her in the bushes, but she wasn't there. I mentally facepalmed after. No one can see my hallucinations except _me._ I turned around and the three looked at me concerningly.

"Right… Uh… I was going to tell you later at breakfast but she's gone now…" I chuckle nervously.

"It's okay. Who's the new girl?" Reiner asks.

"She told me her name was Luanna. She showed up when I was in the dark room yesterday. I think she's around eight years old. I can't tell if she's supposed to be a part of my memory or not though…"

_‘Or if my hallucinations have something to do with my memory. Though, some things are true and some aren’t…’_ I thought.

Jean's eyes light up in curiosity. The colour immediately shifts from a light brown to an aqua colour. 

"That's actually pretty awesome if she isn't hurting you." He says, crossing his arms. I smile and nod. I wish I could say the same for the other hallucinations in my head, but I couldn't. 

"Oh yeah. Marco, you wanted to tell us something last night right?" Jean asks, looking at Marco.

"Yeah. I had a really weird dream. I saw my parents in it." Our eyes widen in surprise as we all exchange glances. The three of us lean in closer to hear the rest of it.

"It seemed like I wanted to be a doctor when I was little. I ended up travelling somewhere until… Somebody assaulted me and everything blacked out. When I woke up in that dream though, I couldn't see but I did hear someone talking. That's where the sudden pain started to come from. You know my cut running down the middle? Well, I think Nurse Kay might have been lying about what she told me because I'm pretty sure I got _sawed_ in half."

I gasped, looking up and down at the set of stitches that binded Marco's torn body together. Who did this to him…? Why did they do it…? 

"That's fucked up." Jean curses, averting his gaze from Marco. His eyes flicker a dark grey.

"Do you know who did it…?" I ask.

"No, but whoever did knew my name, my age, my birthday— I didn't know how they managed to get all this information… I just found it weird that they called me "Subject #3."" 

"Subject #3? Isn't that what it says on your shirt?" Reiner asks, pointing to the three digit code stuck on his cream coloured shirt. Marco nods.

"Yeah… Do you think they did this to me?" Marco asks.

"W-We don't know for sure though right? It could just be a bad dream…" I say, though even I'm starting to wonder. Why would the doctors want to do that to him? It didn't really make any sense to me. I wasn't there to witness it or even understand what it felt like. Other unknown questions started to make my brain think more.

Who assaulted Marco?

Who took him here?

How are we supposed to know if this is real?

There are just so many different possibilities as to why these events happened in his dream. He could have just been robbed or beaten by the assaulter. I couldn't come up with a clear conclusion and it just made my brain hurt mentally. I only knew that I— No _we_ wanted answers. 

The only problem was _how_ we were going to get them.

“I don’t really know what to say…” Jean spoke, clutching his stomach. “I wanna have breakfast. I’m kind of hungry now.”

“Yeah… I wonder why we haven’t been called down yet.” Marco says before looking at me. “I’ll be fine, Bertl. I’m sure we’ll figure this out together. It’ll just stay at the back of my head for now I guess.”

I look at him and nod, despite my worries. Dr. Hunter comes up from behind us which causes me to jump and instantly turn around. He gives me a somewhat suspicious look while sweat drips down my forehead. I felt like backing up into a wall, but there was nothing. If I did start to back up, I would have probably tripped over myself. 

“You four can go eat breakfast now.” Dr. Hunter says, flashing a strange glare at me. I gulped shortly after. “Sorry for the long wait. Something odd happened in the kitchen.”

I look at Jean who shrugs his shoulders. Weirdly enough, I look behind me after hearing a subtle giggle. Nobody was there, but when I looked back for a second time, my head immediately looked forward.

_“Bertholdt~ I wanna play a game with you!”_

The voice of another of my hallucinations started to ring in my ears.

 _‘Not now, Eric. I can’t play…’_ I say in my head, moving along with the others. We make our way to the cafeteria, but the figure doesn’t seem to leave me. 

_‘But I’m boredddd!’_ He whines, walking beside me. I feel myself start to panic. No one else can see him and I’m probably acting strange enough if I’m looking down at nothing. Eric smiles sweetly at me, holding a ball in his hand. 

_‘Pleeaaasssee? You don’t do anything else but talk with your friends all day…’_ His smile turns into a frown and I can’t help but feel a little guilty. I put a hand on his head and chuckle nervously.

“I will, okay? L-Later—”

I felt my body go cold when he looked up at me. His face and body looked like one of the mutations. A chill ran down my spine as I stammered, trying to get the rest of the words out of my mouth.

“L-Later okay? I promise I will play with you in the room today…”

Satisfied, Eric lets out a “Yay!” and walks off somewhere in the building. I look back to see him disappear ang sigh heavily. Reiner then comes along in front of me and pulls me back into reality along with Jean and Marco who look at me alarmingly. It takes me a moment to realize we’re all sitting down at the table.

“Bert are you okay? Your pancakes are getting cold.” Reiner asks.

“You look like you saw a ghost…” Jean says, looking at Marco who nods in agreement. “Are you okay?”

“Y-Yeah don’t worry about it.” I say, smiling reassuringly. I look down at the pancakes in front of me and cut a piece off, putting the piece in my mouth. The warm bread and sticky syrup collided in my mouth. I breathed out gently, feeling a little more relaxed.

“It’s been a while since they made us pancakes for breakfast.” Marco says, gulping down a strawberry.

“What do you guys normally get then?” Jean asks.

“Fruit salads, soup, toast, oatmeal— But mostly stuff with fruits.” Marco replies. “I don’t mind it though. The food here doesn’t exactly taste bad, so it’s palatable.”

I bite into my fresh red apple. A drop of juice dripped down my chin. I took the napkin next to me and wiped it off before taking a sip of milk. Jean catches me drinking and looks at me with jealousy.

“I can’t believe you’re that tall.” He grumbles. “I’m like the shortest one here. How’d you grow so much?!”

I ponder for a second before looking down at my drink. I smile softly and hold the collar of my shirt. “Milk and sleep? I guess that’s what makes me so tall.”

“Or genes.” Marco chimes in— his mouth still full of food. “Genes affect the body. It’s what makes us look like us. They represent DNA from our parents. It’s why Bertholdt’s so tall, Reiner’s really muscular, why I have freckles, and why Jean—”

“Has a horseface?” Reiner teases.

“Excuse me??? Since when did I look like a horse to you?!”

“You must have horse genes then if you look like one.” I say, chuckling. Jean angrily looks at me and Reiner before looking back at Marco.

“I can’t have horse genes right?”

“Of course not; they’re just joking with you.”

“I’m pretty sure if you did have horse genes, you’d have hooves and a mane. Maybe even a pointy thing at the top of your head if you had genes of a unicorn.” Reiner chuckles, sipping on his orange juice.

“What’s a unicorn?”

“I’ll let Marco read you stories about that one.”

I was surprised at how much knowledge Marco already knew about genetics. We don’t remember much so we forgot a lot of important things about the world and he didn’t really seem to read any books about it before. Maybe he asks Dr. Garner about it or reads off her clipboard sometimes. Though, Marco’s never read anything scientific in the library so I really don’t know where he’s getting it.

Or I completely fell asleep and missed the part where he was reading it.

“What are we doing after breakfast?” Jean asks. The four of us exchange looks with each other. I can only shrug my shoulders at Jean. We don’t really have a clear schedule of what happens. The doctors just pull us in and take us back out once they get what they wanted.

“Well, you just got here so they’ll probably be testing you on a lot of things.” Marco explains. “The rest of us already have most of our powers and attributes figured out, so they’ll just be doing that. That’s what they did to me when I got here.”

“Yeah. Marco got here maybe three or four months after me and Bertholdt came. They managed to make a list of most of his powers in two or three weeks maybe. He came out looking really exhausted after though. Took him around the same time to rest as well.” Reiner looks at me and I nod in agreement. Those were some really intense days during Marco's arrival.

“So will it take me that long?” Jean asks.

“I don’t know. Everyone’s different.” I reply, shrugging my shoulders.

“Are you four finished eating?” Dr. Hunter asks, suddenly appearing beside the table. He looks down at us before looking at the clock.

“Experimentation will be taking place first thing this morning. Please make sure you have a full stomach, especially you Jean. You’re going to be in there for a bit of time.” 

The four of us nod and Jean looks at us. His eyes quickly go from light brown to aqua. I tilt my head, wondering what he was feeling. He and Marco both have an eye colour shift but I didn’t know what feelings he was radiating for the time being. The last time I saw his eyes turn aqua was last night when he and Marco were talking.

“Jean? Are you okay?” I ask.

“I’m uh… Kind of nervous.” He replies.

I smile gently at him. “It’s okay. I was pretty nervous the first time I was here too. Luckily Reiner was there to help me out before and after the experiments. You’re even more lucky because now there are three of us who can help you out.” 

Jean looks down at his hands and sighs. He holds his hand up and faces its palm towards my face. I stare at it in confusion, but for some reason I think he’s going to shoot some kind of beam in my face. The see-through material on his hand starts to glow and I brace myself for impact, but instead, a crystal forms. Thankfully, it didn’t shoot at me.

“Heh. I tricked you there.” Jean chuckles.

“Where did you learn how to do that?” I ask.

“Yesterday.”

“That’s so cool!” Marco exclaims. His eyes turn pink while Jean’s remain the same aqua colour from before. This time he’s flustered and smiling.

_“Bertholdt.”_

As I turn around, my eyes meet Dr. Leitner’s. 

“Time to go now.” He says, looking at his clipboard. I look at Reiner who seems a little on edge. I sigh, knowing that he would rather not let me go with the doctors. He didn’t want me to get hurt again.

It’s not like I couldn’t really object though.

“Okay…” I mumble. I grab my tray and wave goodbye to the others. As I walk out the room, I find that Reiner’s eyes were fixed on mine. Blushing, I quickly look away from him. It doesn’t take us long to enter the experimentation room. I feel my body shiver just from the sight of it.

“Are we ready?” Dr. Leitner asks.

The door opens up a dark room. Not just a dark room though.

A dark room filled with my own dark imagination.

I sigh heavily as I shut my eyes, confirming my answer.

_“I am.”_

  
  
  


Instantly, I feel my body get shoved into the room. I drop to the ground and look up to hear the slam of the door following straight after. Standing up, I look into the distance. Despite the room not being that big in reality, it was enormous in my mind. 

My eyes fall to the small figure standing far away from me.

I could feel my breath tremble with every second.

_“Berthoollllddtt! Welcome back! Can we play now?”_ The voice calls.

The images of past cuts, scars, and bruises enter my mind., but there’s nothing I can do about it. As much as I don’t want to stay in here, I have no other choice than to bear the pain.

My lips quiver as I think of a response before I ultimately give in.

_“Y-Yeah… Just be careful… Please.”_ I mumble.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for keeping up with Experiment!
> 
> I hope this week's chapter is good for you guys. :D


	9. Glass (Jean's POV)

I still feel nervous and I don’t know why.

I look back inside the cafeteria as I walk out with Dr. Holt. Only Marco and Reiner were left in there just chatting away. I sighed heavily. This  _ was _ my first time getting experimented on, so it shouldn’t be  _ that  _ bad right?

Well apparently to my brain, no, it’s not.

Cause now it’s really fucking paranoid.

I step into the room, breathing heavily. More cold air hits my face, causing me to shiver. I look at Dr. Holt as she walks towards her desk. Inside the room, there’s a table and a chair. Except I’m pretty sure you’re supposed to lie down on the table and Dr. Holt sits in the chair doing whatever she wants to do.

I gulp quietly.

“Sit on the table.” She orders. I walk over to the table and glare at the unappealing straps sitting beside it. I definitely didn’t wanna get strapped down to the table. That’d only make things worse for me. Reluctantly, I sit myself down on the table. I didn’t really wanna lie down on it. I’m pretty sure it’s metal, so lying down on it wouldn’t be the most comfortable either. 

“I took a look at the crystal you made yesterday. I was wondering if you could make me another one to analyze really quickly.” I nod and look down at my hand. Keeping my focus on it, another crystal pops out. I hand the gem to her and she manages to extract a piece of it to put under the microscope.

“Just as I thought.” Dr. Holt says, writing her findings down on her clipboard. “I’m going to make the assumption that you can make crystals of different densities.”

Dr. Holt picks up both crystals. She throws the first one I made before onto the wall nearby. It drops to the ground with a slight crack in it. The other crystal is thrown shortly after but this time, it shatters onto the ground like glass. Surprised, I look down at my palm in amazement.

“Very interesting…” She says. “If you can make denser crystals, you could use that to make various things.” Dr. Holt picks up a knife sitting at the end of the table and holds it up, eyeing it’s glistening blade.

“You could even make weapons if you wanted to.”

I nodded, figuring that all I could really do was make things that could do damage to others or the space around me. I looked at my hands, thinking of something that I wanted to make. A knife? A sword? I jumped back a bit to find that the same knife in Dr. Holt’s hand had been forged in the crystal in my palm. Alarmed, I drop the blade by accident. It shatters into a million pieces as it hits the floor.

“Wrong density. Try again.” Dr. Holt sighs, resting her head on her fist. I breathe in, looking back at my hand once more. C’mon, Jean. It’s a weapon. It has to be strong enough to not break when you drop it and it has to be sharp enough to cut someone’s skin. I watch as the blade handle is being formed before the whole thing is complete. Dr. Holt takes in some kind of test dummy and gestures to me to attack it.

Looking down at the knife, I lunge towards the fake body, plunging the weapon into its chest. I feel my knife get stuck inside it, but I managed to pull it out after a hard tug. Dr. Holt writes down her findings as she asks me to continue.

Cut after cut, I sliced through whatever Dr. Holt wanted me to injure. I felt like I was slicing through time almost. That’s how fast I was starting to cut everything. My strokes became more quick and swift with every slash through the feather-stuffed dummy. Exhaling sharply, I wipe a drop of sweat that rolled down my cheek.

“Very interesting. You would do well combating the mutations outside.” Dr. Holt says, complementing my attacks. I breathe heavily, nodding in acknowledgment. She hands me a glass of water which I gulp down immediately. I hand her the blade I made and sit back on the examination table.

_ ‘I wonder what else I can make...’  _ I think, staring at my hand. I closed my eyes, picturing something in my head. A ball? A ball is pretty simple to make… If I can make a knife I can surely make a ball.

Then it happened. A ball formed in my hand. I looked at it carefully, watching the light bounce off the transparent surface. I was kinda surprised at how fascinated I was with my own powers. I felt eager to learn more about what I could do. The anxiety I had earlier just washed away.

What a relief.

"What else do you think you can do?" Dr. Holt asks.

"I'm not sure…" I reply.

She nods, suddenly looking for something in the room. I raise an eyebrow, wondering what she was trying to find. Dr. Holt picks up a glass with a triangle-shaped base and a narrow cylinder-like top. I wouldn't have guessed it, but she threw the thing at me. I didn't know why, but for some reason I didn't feel anything hit me after putting my arms up to shield my face.

It comes to my own sudden realization that I had made something to protect myself. Lowering my guard, I find that I've been trapped inside a crystal  _ egg _ . Dr. Holt looks at me before returning to writing information on her clipboard. I pound at the casing, trying to maybe break it. It was as hard as a rock and thick as hell.

How was I going to get out?

"Are you alright in there?" Dr. Holt asks on the other end. I nod my head, kicking at the casing's solid frame. Didn't work. I look back up at her and she places a hand on the crystal material.

"Do you think you can get out?" She asks.

"I don't know." I sigh.

"Then find a way." I give Dr. Holt a weird look. How  _ was _ I supposed to get out of this thing? I'm encased in some kind of egg-like structure. I barely made a dent in the material anyway and it's not like this was the more soft, thin kind of crystal. No, it was the rock solid one.

I grit my teeth, backing up, attempting to charge at the casing. All it left me with though was a sore shoulder. I sighed, gently putting a hand on the crystal material. My finger traced over the clear casing. Weirdly enough, I noticed that the wall became thinner. Looking down at my hand, I spread it out on the glass-like crystal. The material would disappear into the clear part of my hand. Before I knew it, there was a hole in the wall.

I looked down at my hand, once again amazed at my capabilities. Out of pure instinct, I lifted my arms with my palms wide open. Within maybe two or three seconds, the material made its way back into my body. I turned my head to see Dr. Holt once again, writing down her findings.

"Amazing indeed. That will definitely help you in any tight situations." I nod, feeling a smile form on my face. A sudden question popped into my mind as I thought of the words Dr. Holt had told me.

"Doctor," I say. " You keep saying that learning these types of abilities and honing my powers will do me good in battle with the mutations. Does that mean you're going to let us out once we have them under control? I don't mind assisting people, so long as you're able to help us find our origins."

Dr. Holt looks at me with her same emotionless expression. However, she seems to re-think the answer she was originally going to give me. I tilted my head. What was she going to say?

"Well, yes. That is correct. We thought that by using your powers, you could help humanity get a grip on life once again. Maybe even help clear out some of the places that are swarming with these mutations. Not now, however. Your powers are still unharnessed. Were you to go out there without the proper skills, you could accidentally cause major damage. We'll let you know when it's finally been stabilized."

I nod, but start to wonder if she purposely avoided my other statement.

"Doctor, what about helping me and the others find our families and homes? You'll do that, right?"

For some reason, Dr. Holt has her focus elsewhere. She ponders in place for a short moment before looking up at me.

"I'd say yes for your compensation."

I'm not exactly satisfied with her answer, but I accept it anyways.

"Anyway, there's something else I'd like to look at." Dr. Holt points to the clear circles in the middle of my palms. "Those. I wanted to get some more information on them and how they manage to create those crystals. I also want to know how they affect your body."

Dr. Holt drags me into another room. More specifically, the examination room. I realize that it was the same one I was in yesterday because the same cylinder-shaped chamber was in the corner. 

"Step inside again, please." She says, pointing her hand to the machine.

I do as told and feel slightly colder air run up my body. The white beam once again goes up and down, turning green every so often. I scratch my cheek, feeling itchy for an odd reason. Dr. Holt taps on the glass which draws my attention.

"Stay still please." She sighs.

"Sorry." I say, averting my eyes.

I didn't know why, but I felt like Dr. Holt seemed annoyed or dissatisfied at the fact that she's monitoring me. Her voice was always so dry and toneless. The same could go for her demeanour. No expression whatsoever. Did she even get any sleep? She seemed really tired too. I sigh as I reflect on my own thoughts. I mean, she seemed to act that way towards everyone here. I really don't know after all.

"You can step out now." Dr. Holt says a few seconds before the chamber's doors slide open. I shakily walk out, only because the air inside it made me a little cold. I sit down on a nearby chair, hugging my shivering body. Dr. Holt sits in the chair in front of me with a device in her hand.

"Take a look at this." She says, handing me the rectangle-shaped device. A picture of my skeleton shows up on the screen. I watch as little lines pop in, getting connected to informative text beside it. I look at the two hands where my crystal circles were. The lines on the body started to glow a shiny light blue; All were connected to the palms on my hands.

"That material must flow everywhere in your body. I'm guessing it's storage area is your heart since a lot of it seems to be coming from there." Dr. Holt points to the circle in the middle of my chest. I shove my hand up my shirt, trying to find the hard material surrounding my heart. 

"Your heart seems to be creating the material as well. Then it transports it through your veins and it makes its way to the crystals engraved onto your hands. Then, the tension in your hand depends on how dense your crystal will be."

It started to make sense to me, especially since I didn't understand anything at first. I felt like I had some more control over my powers which felt nice. Looking down at my hand, I balled it into a fist tightly.

"It seems your bones are made of the same material. I'm starting to wonder how they'd heal, were they to break." Dr. Holt stands up, looking for something in the tool box. I felt nervous again because not knowing what she was going to get was freaking me out a little. 

"Go lie down on the table. I'll be there in a minute." She says.

I gulp, lying down on the cold metal surface. I started to fidget with the side of my shirt. I was so calm earlier. Why was I getting so anxious all of a sudden? I mean, she's just looking for something in that box. Anything could be in there.

Right if anything can be in a box anything can come out. 

Ugh, I seriously have issues.

After getting drowned in my own thoughts, I feel myself jump as my body is suddenly grabbed. I watch as Dr. Holt places some kind of strap over my limbs. Panicking, I try to move but all she does is continue pinning me down. 

"Stop moving. Just let me do what I have to do." She spoke, suddenly serious.

"W-What are you doing?!" I shout.

"Just let me finish so there won't be any problems."

I kept tugging at the binds. My anxious body wasn't having it. Dr. Holt puts on a pair of goggles and changes her lab coat. I felt fear trail over my body. I literally had no idea of what she was going to do to me. My body grew cold when I saw her holding up a huge object with a blunt end. For some reason, I didn't dare move.

"I'm glad you stopped shaking. It'll make things easier." Dr. Holt sighs, adjusting her goggles.

"Just relax."

She raises the object— her shadow covering most of my body. I really don't know why, but part of me thought she wasn't going to hit me. I genuinely thought she was going to hit the ground beside me or even the table.

Well, I was terribly,  _ terribly  _ wrong.

She hit my fucking arm.

I laid there, screaming in pain— confused as to why she decided to do that. Though, I kind of did. But she never asked me if I was  _ okay  _ with it. Hell, she didn't even give me a heads up. "Just relax," isn't a fucking heads up. I wanted to be angry. I wanted to shout at her.

But I couldn't.

Tears began to fill my eyes as I grit my teeth. My left arm was stinging so much. My vision started to get hazy as well. I don't think I was able to process anything during that time. My body was just in total shock. When I  _ was  _ able to think straight, I noticed red covering Dr. Holt's lab coat. I weakly turned my head and stared at the horror that was now my beaten and broken arm.

I wanted to throw up. I swear I could see my own bones sticking out in the slightest. It was kind of hard to tell because they were  _ clear _ . Just as Dr. Holt said. Blood actually spilled out my veins and onto the table. My sleeve was rolled up, so not much got on it. I guess I was too caught up in my own panic to realize she rolled it up for me.

"Interesting. Only blunt objects seem to actually damage your crystal material. Even with the thin, glass like ones, knives or explosives don't make a dent. You know, I discovered that with the two crystals you made yesterday and the day before." Dr. Holt holds up the oversized hammer, examining the end she hit me with.

"A-Are you done?" I manage to say, despite my own body trembling and shaking. Dr. Holt's eyes look down at my arm again. 

"It seems to be healing fairly fast. What if you had two bone injuries?"

"God please don't—"

I screamed so loud that everyone in this godforsaken place could hear me anywhere they were. The pain came from my right leg this time. I knew Dr. Holt didn't roll up my pants, so I couldn't really see what damage she did to me. I didn't expect her to bring down the hammer a second time. I started to shake and sob uncontrollably as my blood leaked out of my body like water. 

I couldn't feel my leg or my arm at this point. I didn't want to move the parts I knew I could still move either. It was like the pain affected every part of my body; Not just the areas that were affected. I tightly shut my eyes, trying to think of something else as the hammer smashed down on my arm again without warning. I don't know why, but the first thing I thought of was Marco.

I tried to fight back the tears in my eyes, but the pain was too much for me. The muscles in my body felt fuzzy and mushy, like they weren't that solid anymore. Even if I moved in the slightest, it felt like my leg and arm were chopped off. I really couldn't feel anything. It only made me want to cry more in frustration.

To top it off, I didn't know how to calm myself down.

No, how could I? I'm being beaten to death.

"The healing process is still visible, but it seems to have slowed. Your heart is pumping at a higher rate because not only is it delivering your blood and oxygen around, the material needed to rebuild your bones needs to get to your wounds as well. I guess that makes your heart the weak spot."

I couldn't give a shit about what Dr. Holt was trying to tell me. I'm literally lying on this table, bleeding to fucking death. And what does she do? Give me some lesson I didn't even ask for. Yeah, sure, maybe it would be important but does now really seem like a good time? 

"How do you feel?" Dr. Holt asks.

"What does it fucking look like?" I curse.

Dr. Holt gives me a tired and disapproving look like she was already fed up with my bullshit. I bit my lip, trying to find some way to make the pain go away. I couldn't though because I'm still strapped down to this damn table.

"Since you don't seem willing to answer my questions, I'll just proceed with the final test." Dr. Holt rests the hammer on her shoulder and looks down at me. I felt my heart thump faster and faster. I started to cry more, knowing what would come to me. She raised the bloodstained weapon, preparing to bring it down.

I shut my eyes tightly, trying to get the thoughts out of my head. Just something to help me feel a little calmer would make this situation easier to handle. What do I think about? Marco? Reiner? Bertholdt? Their names just bounce back and forth inside my head.

_ ‘Marco, Reiner, Bertholdt…’ _

But for a moment, it felt like time stopped, allowing me to process my thoughts.

The event Bertholdt had told me about yesterday enters my head. At first, I didn’t understand why the doctors did that stuff to him; Why they didn’t give him a chance to settle down or take a break from all the stress and panic. They just dragged him away and did whatever they needed to do with him.

Isn’t that what’s happening to me right now?   
  


The only difference is that no one is here to see me.

No one is going to know what will happen to me.

Because I can already feel the weight of the hammer on my forehead.

I feel myself lightly choke on a sob, thinking back to the first meeting with the guys. I kinda wish I was able to spend more time with them and get closer. Maybe find out what happened to Marco in his dream and kill the bastard that sliced him in half. Time slowly started to speed up as I kept my eyes shut.

But then the panic just returned.

I was going to get hit in the head with a gigantic hammer.

If that was enough to break my arm and leg, that’d be enough to crush my head.

Sooner than later, the realization hit me.

_ I’m going to die. _

_ I’m going to fucking die. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Cliffhanger >:D 
> 
> Hope you enjoyed this week's chapter!
> 
> There's a slight chance that I may start posting two chapters a week, but that depends lol.
> 
> Thank you for keeping up with Experiment!


	10. Dying (Bertholdt's POV)

_“A-Are we done yet?”_

_“Not yet~!”_

I sighed, shuddering lightly from the cuts on my hands. I watched as Eric, my “playful” hallucination tossed me another ball. Because this room was so dark, I couldn’t tell if the ball had spikes or not. I’d realize this only _after_ I caught the ball. I gripped my bleeding hand in pain while my hallucination laughs cheerfully. Falling backwards, I lean my back against the wall, breathing heavily.

I shut my eyes tightly, trying to think of something else other than the pain. When I open them, I scream shortly which resulted in me hitting the back of my head. I take the front of my hand and rub the aching area gently. In front of me is a woman with a bandaid covering her cheek. She also had lots of stitches in odd places. Places you wouldn’t expect needing stitches.

“Was Eric throwing too many spiky balls this time?” She asked. I sighed and looked up at her.

“I’m fine… Eloise…” I huff.

“Are you sure? I can patch it up, y’know.”

“And make me sick again?” I think back to when I first met Eloise, one of the many hallucinations I had. She comforted me when I was feeling ill one day. I remember her giving me medicine, and me not knowing if it was safe or not slipped it into my mouth. I ended up getting a fever along with an annoying headache. I felt bad after that because Reiner got sick not too long after I recovered. 

“What are you talking about?” Eloise says, dumbfounded, like she has no idea what she did to me. “I’m a nurse. I’m supposed to care for the sick and injured. Now, why don’t you let me bandage up your wounds? You’ll feel much better afterwards.”

“You won’t hurt me this time…?” I ask.

“Of course not. Why would I do that?” I sigh, showing her my bloody hands. She takes out a bottle of alcohol and cloth, spraying it with the liquid. I wince a little as she cleans the injured areas. After that, she pulls out a long white bandage and covers my palms. I looked down at them when she finished. All I could hope for now is that she didn’t poison me with the alcohol or something like that.

“See? All better!” Eloise exclaims happily.

“Thank you.” I reply.

“Would you like a lollipop?”

I suddenly hesitate. I didn’t want her to make me sick again, but she did heal me properly. Maybe it wouldn’t hurt to take it then?

I take the candy Eloise had in her hand, thanking her for the treat. I took the wrapper off and slid it into my mouth. Immediately, a sugary taste of blue-raspberry exploded the second it touched my tongue. I rolled the hard candy around in my mouth, savouring the taste.

“Take care of yourself okay?” Eloise spoke, smiling at me. I nodded my head and she turned around, walking away back into the darkness. I looked down at my hands. They still stung from the pain and still felt sore. I was glad they had stopped bleeding, otherwise it would have ruined my shirt. Though, I figured that I would still need to change it anyway. 

_“Bertholdt~”_

A chill ran down my spine when I suddenly heard an eerie sounding voice talk. I tightly shut my eyes. I knew which hallucination that was. Something called “Blood and Darkness.” That very thing happened to scare me whenever it had the chance. It’d only hurt me once; The day I had that stupid nightmare. The day that caused all the doctors working with me to never stop bugging me about it. But it wasn’t like I could object to the tests or experiments. I _had_ to do them.

Even if they were for my own good, it hurt so much.

_“What’s the matter Bertholdt? Scared and weak as usual?”_

“Go away…” I muttered, covering my ears with my hands. I could feel it’s dark aura swirl around me. He’d let out a laugh and I could feel a hand being placed on my shoulder. I shuddered at the touch.

_‘Don’t hurt me, don’t hurt me, don’t hurt me.’_ I’d chant in my head, hoping that it wouldn’t happen. I decided to open my eyes just for a peek. Yelping quietly, I tightly shut my eyes once again. The sight was just another blood-stained knife; A knife that had _my_ blood on it. I didn’t want to further stain it either.

Not today or any other day at least.

_“What makes you so scared of me, hm?”_ He taunted.

“W-What makes you want to hurt me so much?” I stuttered.

He doesn’t answer. Instead, he decided to pull me into the middle of the room and circle around me like a demon. I tried my best to block the horrifying sounds out of my head. The smell of blood started to fill the air once again. Was I being stabbed or cut? I didn’t feel any pain, but my head started to feel a little dizzy.

_“Your question is something that still yet has to be answered, Bertholdt.”_ The voice says, continuing to my mind desperate for an answer. _“However, I’ll give you a hint. My question to you is also your answer if you are smart enough to understand what I’m trying to say.’”_

_“Why did you get to live when that radiation hit you?”_

The question played in my head countless times. I didn’t understand. What did he mean by that? Was he a person that didn’t get to see another day because of the radiation? Though that could be the case, I wasn’t sure about what my hallucinations even _were_. The thought of them being actual people that decided to torment me for the rest of my life seems too unrealistic, but I don’t exactly know. 

And then again, I didn’t know why they decided to pick on me.

The voices started to get louder and louder. A few shrill screams and shrieks started to ring in my ears as well. Voices of women, men, anybody’s voice just kept haunting me. I could feel my mind start to deteriorate again as tears started to run down my cheeks. I tried my best not to cry, but I broke then and there. His voice came back to laugh at me in a mockingly way. That was what he wanted, wasn’t it? To see me cry and break down into a ball again…

Then something light taps my shoulder.

Looking up, it’s Luanna. 

I feel a wave of safety and comfort wash over my body as the little girl looks up at me, confused about why I was crying. It takes me back to the memory of me first meeting her. Almost in the same position, except I was so scared and exhausted. I’d only been in here for at least half an hour while I was in there for three hours straight the other day. This moderation and everything is probably the reason why I’m so damn tired when I come back…

_‘What’s wrong?’_ Luanna writes.

“I got scared… Again.” I sigh.

_‘It’s okay. I get scared too.’_ She writes, sitting down next to me. _‘The other people here are kind of scary too. I don’t know why they try to hurt you, though.’_

Surprised by her understanding, I quietly gasp. Luanna places her small head on my shoulder, sitting down with her hands in her lap. I find my eyes look down at the small girl. She started to draw something in that book of hers. I tried to make out what she was drawing, but I couldn’t seem to get a clear picture.

“What are you drawing?” I ask.

 _‘My home.’_ Luanna writes. 

“It’s a nice drawing.” I say. It really was. She wrote a little, “Thank you” on the corner of the paper. “Do you miss home?” I spoke, asking another question. I could see Luanna hesitate with her answer that time.

_‘I do.’_

The ink of the pen flows smoothly onto the paper as she writes a few more words.

_‘Do you miss home?’_

Ah… How I wish I could go home. Even if I didn’t know where home was, I longed for the day I could finish all my tests and breathe fresh air. I would occasionally get dreams of the world outside. Lots of trees, lakes, and rivers. Lots of wildlife too. I don’t remember seeing many people, but I do remember the house I used to live in. It was a log cabin that had an upstairs. I think I remembered seeing two bedrooms. I lived with another person who was probably my father. 

Although, if I could come up with other people I’d see besides my father, it’d be a boy. I never saw his face clearly, though. I’d remember him knocking on the front door of my house and he’d ask me to get up and play with him in the forest. I wasn’t sure if I had dreams where we were the age I was now, but one day, I’d like to know if he was still out there. I’m sure we were very close. Even if the whole world wanted to kill me, I only hoped that my father and he would still see me as human.

Thinking about it more, I remember Dr. Leitner telling me that I should be glad me and Reiner got stuck here instead of being handed over to the other institution called the Survey Corporation. Apparently they had this scientist who was really crazy, almost insane even. Her experiments were far worse than the stuff they did to me here. I don’t trust the doctors when it comes to them saying “they’ll take care of me,” but some of their truths seem believable.

I hope.

_‘I picked an apple for you when I went to the garden today.’_ Luanna writes. She takes out two large red apples and hands one to me. I wonder if she was talking about the environment room when I saw her earlier. I don’t remember any apples being there, so I couldn't pinpoint where she collected them. Regardless, I thanked her for the fruit and took a bite out of it.

_‘I tell you stuff about me. Can you tell me things about you?’_ I blink, thinking over her question. I pick up the pen and write a response.

_‘Well, sure. Is there anything you want to know in particular?’_

_‘Who’s the boy who keeps flirting with you?’_

My cheeks go red and I look down at Luanna. She gives me a teasing, but playful smile.

“H-He isn’t flirting with me!” I exclaim.

 _‘I think he is.’_ She writes.

I sigh and let out a chuckle shortly after. Luanna was adorable. I couldn’t get mad at her in all honesty. She gives me a soft smile and starts to write again.

_‘Well, go on then. Tell me.’_

I tell her about how me and Reiner first met. We both woke up in the same space with no clue of how we got there and without any memories. I remember him wrapping a gentle arm around my body, assuring me everything would be okay. He’s never left my side since. We did lots of things together such as sharing books, playing board or card games, and we even messed around in the environment room.

Though, again, we’ve been in a lot of sticky situations. I didn’t want to bring those up to Luanna because I didn’t want her to worry about them. She _was_ just a little girl anyway. Plus, there were too many to explain. I don’t remember much of those events anyway. I don’t get dreams about them, surprisingly. I must have genuinely forgotten.

_‘Reiner seems nice.’_ Luanna writes. _‘I wish I could talk to him. I wish I could talk to your other friends too. That way we can all play.’_ Luanna tugs at the end of her dress. I pick up the pen, writing down a question.

_‘Why can’t you talk to them?’_ I asked.

_‘I don’t know. I think it has something to do with you though’_

_‘What do you mean?’_ I write, confused. Luanna just shrugs her shoulders. I guess she doesn’t know either. Looking down at my bandaged hands, I grit my teeth. My hands still ached and I’d still be in here for the next hour or so. Maybe even two? I try to remember how long my examination has gone for. I think it’s been 45 minutes now. Guess I can just hope I don’t stay in here for long.

_‘I hope they can see me when you do figure it out.’_

_‘I do too. I bet they’d like to meet you.’_

_‘Tell me more about them later, okay?’_

_‘Haha. Alright.’_

Luanna grins at me and stands up. She tugs at my wrist, presumably asking me to stand up. When I do, she points at my shoulder. Confused, I tilt my head nervously. She picks up her book, writing something down.

_‘You’re really tall. Can I sit on your shoulders?’_

I blush nervously, a little alarmed.

“Uh… Sure?”

I kneel down and feel her light body hop onto my back. Her body was so light that I felt like I’d accidentally drop her. My legs started to shake as I stood up. Luanna placed her hands on my head for more support. I tilted my head upwards to try and get a good look at her.

“You alright?” I asked.

Luanna gives me a thumbs up and a nod.

“Now what?”

Her tiny finger points to the direction in front of me. I guess she wanted to feel what it must be like to be tall herself. I start walking, holding her legs and hoping she doesn’t fall off. I could tell she was happy because when I looked up, she seemed to be enjoying herself.

I sighed, relieved.

I feel her gently tap my head. She puts her book right in my face and I hold its collar.

_‘Do you think I’ll be as tall as you?’_

"I don’t know?” I chuckle. "Maybe."

After walking around the dark room for some time, I set Luanna back down. She rubs her eyes, showing me that she was sleepy. I sit down with her as our backs face the wall. She gently places her tiny head onto my lap. I was relieved to know Luanna felt safe with me, although I felt more safe when I was around her. Her hand holds mine as she drifts off to sleep. I gently stroke the top of her head, running my fingers through her silky black hair. I see her smile, and she stops shivering. I figured that she was cold, as I was.

A few minutes later, she completely fell asleep. I didn't move and decided to stay in my spot. Though, I didn't have anything else to do. I didn't have any books, I couldn't write. I let out a yawn and tried to relax my body so I could sleep as well. A nap seemed nice.

And the more I thought about sleeping, I ended up falling asleep.

* * *

_I felt my body shiver as I stuck my hand into the ice cold stream of water. Shaking my hand, I dried it off with my sweater. I didn’t know why I decided to go out while it was freezing. This dream I was having was just one of the many I’d have. In fact, I seem to get this setting almost often. A… younger me? Maybe I’m the age I am now, I don’t know._

_I couldn’t understand what this dream-like me was so fascinated with. It was just a stream of water. A stream of water I always kept coming back to when I wasn’t having nightmares. I didn’t expect much to happen, until the vision swayed to the side._

_“Bertholdt, I’m going out.” A voice spoke. I turned my head and nodded yes. I felt a gentle, warm hand land on my head. Then he walked out. I looked back down at the book little-me was reading. I wasn’t aware that my younger self liked to read. That is, if this dream is true._

_I couldn’t say what my hallucination was trying to show me here. Yes, one of my hallucinations takes the form of my dreams. It’s an odd concept, but it’s what I’ve stuck to ever since I started to see them. I found that Dream would be one of the more frequent ones. It’d mostly show up in my sleep. I mean, why would it not? Though, weirdly enough, it did show up while I was awake and conscious._

_I felt my dream-self fall asleep for a brief moment, before suddenly waking up in— what I assume is— the facility. I nervously bit my lip as my character started to walk around aimlessly, or, maybe not. Perhaps I was looking for something? Wait, no. That can’t be right. I don’t think I’m looking for something, but looking for the source of a sound._

_I felt unfamiliar with the different hallways. I’d try to push open a door, but very few would budge. I wondered if parts of the place were indeed a part of the facility me and the others were kept in. I figured that they were parts of the building that I never got to see or parts that I’m forbidden to enter, but who knows. Maybe my head is playing tricks with me like it always does. Because of my hallucinations, I can’t tell if my dreams are fiction or reality. I know my hallucinations have shown me something that hasn’t happened even if that connected event happened a day or two ago._

_Marco’s body may be complicated, but my mind is as well._

_I start running down the hallway as darkness catches up with me. In fear of it swallowing me whole, I run into a room and slam the door shut. What even is this? What is my hallucination trying to get at here? What is—?_

_Then, I hear it._

_Turning around to the sound of doors sliding open, the darkness is there. Not to circle around me, but something or someone else. Confused, I walked inside. I suddenly felt worried and anxious and I didn’t know why. But what did I even know about anything? Too many questions… If only I could get the answer to them all._

_There’s an examination table with a body covered in a white sheet. I felt like I was looking at a dead person’s corpse. I had some kind of feeling to rip it off and see what was under, but my stomach churned._

_‘No, don’t take it off.’ I thought._

**_‘Don’t you want to know what’s under it?’_ **

_Alarmed, I turn around and see a woman in a lab coat. I couldn’t recognize her face since she was wearing a mask. She didn’t sound like any of the doctors here at the laboratory either. Just unrecognizable to me. I tilted my head, confused._

**_‘Go ahead. I believe it’s important that you check.’_ **

_‘Is it…?’_

_I look back down at the unidentified body. I gulped, holding the edge of the sheet. I turned around to ask the doctor another question, but found that she vanished in thin air. I shuddered. As if it didn’t already feel like a ghost town here, this place was creeping me out big time. I took a deep breath in and ripped off the sheet._

_The second I did, I instantly regretted it._

_I backed up, putting a hand over my mouth. I choked on words which resulted in none coming out. My body started to shake again. This was not happening in real life, was it? What exactly is my hallucination trying to tell me?_

_Why is Jean’s body on the table all bloody and broken?_

_I breathed in heavily, feeling my own breath tremble. Despite my fears, I slowly approached his limp and lifeless body. I placed my hand on Jean’s forehead; Cold like a stone. Worry began to splash onto my face. I took in another deep breath, trying to tell myself I’m just dreaming, that my hallucinations were playing tricks on me._

_It wasn’t until I heard a voice call out from behind me._

**_‘He’s dying.’_ ** _Was all my hallucination said to me._

_‘W-What? I-I don’t—’_

**_‘Did you not hear me? He is dying. He will die.’_ **

_‘B-But why though?!’_

**_‘He may not, but there is a chance. What are you going to do about it?’_ **

_I feel my face start to grow heavy with panic. The same two words begin repeating in my head. Was Jean really dying? What was killing him? I stopped to think for a second. It suddenly made sense to me now._

_Another test, experiment, something. It might kill him._

_Then my body shot awake._

Heavily panting, I looked at my lap and found that Luanna was no longer sleeping with me. Cold sweat started to pour down my head, neck and face. I frantically looked around to see if someone or something was there, only to be greeted with the same dark and depressing moderation room. I felt myself zone out for a second, trying to process what I saw in that weird dream.

For some reason, screaming rang in my ears.

I couldn’t tell if it was happening.

But then I realized why I woke up now.

I ran to the wall, wherever that was. Finally finding the door, I started to pound on it non-stop. That hallucination can predict future events. I know it did because I was able to predict when Marco was going to have that same harsh nightmare I had. It told me. And it always asked,

What will I do about it?

“Let me out! Let me out!” I shouted. “I-I need you to let me out, please!”

I see Dr. Leitner’s face show up behind the glass window. I stop banging for a moment. If I could just let them know that doing the experiment could possibly kill Jean, maybe they won’t go through with it. I naÏvely smile, hoping that he was going to open the door.

_“You’re not done yet.”_

The words circle around my head non-stop.

“B-But—!”

“You’re not finished. Enough with these excuses. Continue to barge on and you’ll stay in there until evening.”

My body begins to break down and shatter into a million pieces.

_“N-No… T-That’s not—!”_

Looking behind me. I see a hand drag me back into the dark shadows of the room. I scream, afraid of getting hurt once again. Not this, not now! I don’t wanna do this anymore! My heart began racing, pounding harder and faster. I felt myself be thrown as I hit the cold, metal ground causing my right shoulder to ache. Looking up, I see his knife, still drenched in blood.

_“Can’t run, huh?”_

I try to stand up again, but my head is only slammed down. I feel the tip of the sharp metal blade tease my aching shoulder. I look at it intensely, fearing that I’ll be stabbed to near death once again.

_“Why worry about your friends when they aren’t the main course? He's as good as dead anyway.”_

“W-Why are you doing this to me?!”

He pauses, thinking for a brief moment.

_“Simple. Because you’re alive.”_

I’m left confused, but before I can say anything else, the knife is lodged into my shoulder.

_“Help! Somebody, please help me! L-Let me out!”_

But it doesn’t help. 

Once again, I’m left screaming as I’m being stabbed to death by my imagination.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey! I got a [Tumblr!](https://arya-ender.tumblr.com/) Feel free to ask me questions about my story :DDDDD
> 
> Thank you so much for your support! I didn't expect the story to be a slow burn (I guess? Lol) but please stick around! I promise things will start to get a little more intense after another set of four chapters. I promiseeeee.
> 
> Once again, thank you so much for keeping up with Experiment!


	11. Injured (Marco's POV)

My mind seemed to be wandering from time to time. I shook my head, trying to regain focus on the target in front of me. I wonder what caused me to space out every couple minutes. Taking in a deep breath, I forced my eyes to lock on the dummy in front of me. Gripping my knife, I dashed towards my target, using whatever strength I could to make deep cuts into the material. Target after target, I took a break, panting gently. I looked behind me to see how many I was able to hit. Turns out, my aim was off by a bit and I only hit around seven of the twelve targets. Dr. Garner shook her head and sighed.

God damn it. I have to do it again, don’t I?

“You’re prioritizing speed over your accuracy, Marco.” Dr. Garner spoke in a stiff tone. “Sure, it will probably get you out of combat quickly, but you’re still going to have to go back and attack because you didn’t injure them enough. Remember, you need to get rid of them. Unless of course you want them to attack other people.”

I nod, gripping onto the knife tighter. In a flash, the dummies have been repaired with no signs of scratches or stab marks. Taking in a deep breath, I get myself into a fighting stance, ready to plunge my blade deep into the enemy. I hear the automated voice count the remaining seconds.

_ Fifteen, fourteen, thirteen. _

“Remember, make your cuts clean, deep, and accurate. Prioritize accuracy over speed.” Dr. Garner says, keeping her eyes on me.

_ “And don’t lose your focus.” _

The second the timer hit zero, my feet pushed my body off the ground and I ripped through the targets with my blade. Although it looked like time sped up for Dr. Garner, for me, it merely felt like slashing something normally. I figured this was probably the reason why I was faster than deadlier.

I started to keep track of how many targets I was able to hit. Dashing back and forth to attack them all, the number inside my head began to increase with every slash.

_ Ten, sixteen, twenty-one. _

“Light’s off! Your targets will begin attacking and moving!” Dr. Garner yelled, pressing the button to initiate phase two of my assessment. I gritted my teeth as the room became dark. I had to focus on my senses now, otherwise I wouldn’t last outside at night time. I felt the presence of one of my targets trail up behind my back. In an instant, I forced my blade into the dummy’s throat and trailed it down it’s body, stopping once I got to its stomach.

Another enemy came charging at me. I dodged it’s sharp claws and stabbed the back of its head before digging the knife down like I did last time. I had to be brutal with these kills, despite them being test dummies. It’s not like I knew how strong the real mutations were, so best be safe than sorry.

I felt my cheek start to sting slightly. I must have gotten cut on accident. The next target took me off guard and it’s blade-like arm dived straight into my arm, piercing my flesh. Even though it was dark, I could see my blood gushing out violently. I gritted my teeth and lodged the knife into its neck, dragging the blade all across its throat. I watched as the decoy fell to the ground. Had I continued cutting, I would have decapitated it.

I looked down at the blade that was still hanging in my arm. Wincing, I pulled it out and gripped the wound tightly. I shook my head in disappointment.

_ ‘Not again…’  _ I thought.  _ ‘Not another stupid injury…’ _

Losing focus, multiple enemies ganged up behind me and pushed me onto the ground of the testing room. I accidentally dropped my blade which didn’t help either. With the energy I had remaining, I dashed for the weapon and threw it at one of the targets. Following up, I grabbed the blade once more and dragged it across its body and slit the throat of the one behind me. These things were hard to kill while they were moving. I was just glad Dr. Garner only made me take on about five or six of these ones. While they were still, attacking was much more manageable.

The lights came back on and I stepped out of the room. Dr. Garner looked at my arm just once before sighing in annoyance. “That’s what happens if you aren’t focused, Marco. Come with me. We have to go to the infirmary to get you patched up before we can continue doing anymore work.” 

I nodded my head and walked with her down the hallway. I looked at the various rooms with many testing areas. My mind would wonder which one had Jean, Reiner, or Bertholdt in it. I hoped that they were doing okay. Getting tests, assessments, experiments, or whatever else always left us in pain and bandages. 

Will there ever be a day where one of us doesn’t come back injured?

“Hello Dr. Garner— Ah! Marco! Please sit down. I’ll get you patched up in a second.” Nurse Kay exclaims, hurrying over to the cabinet to fetch me some medical bandages. I sit down on one of the beds and look at my left arm. The wound was really nasty. I felt my head start to get a little dizzy. If the wound was on my right side, I wouldn’t be feeling it so suddenly.

“Give me a moment to clean your wound okay?” Nurse Kay informs me. I nod my head and brace myself for the sting the alcohol would inflict on my arm. I winced, shutting my eyes tightly. When she was finished, she wrapped the white bandage over my wound. I looked down at my sleeve and shirt to find it completely drenched in blood. One of the other nurses in the room comes back with a fresh shirt and hands it to me. After applying the bandage, Nurse Kay lets me tidy up any other blood stains in the bathroom.

Stepping inside, I look into the mirror and take my shirt off. Some of the blood seeped through my shirt and ended up staining the side of my torso. Grabbing the warm, damp cloth, I rub it over the blood-stained areas, trying to get all the blood off my body. I placed it to the side and slipped on my new shirt. Thinking I was done, I noticed a red cut going across my right cheek. It took me a second to realize it was the cut from earlier and I somehow missed it. I suddenly heard Nurse Kay knock on the door and I quickly ran to open it. 

“Everything alright?” She asked.

“I need a bandaid for this cut here.” I spoke.

“I’m afraid you’re going to need more than a bandaid, Marco. That cut is quite deep. I have to stitch it up.”

Ugh, words I  _ dreaded _ hearing.

I sat down in the chair next to Nurse Kay’s workstation. My eyes trailed along the needle that would stitch me up. It was a different needle, as opposed to the one Dr. Garner used for me to replace the stitches binding my two halves together. I guess it’s not that bad, since these stitches don’t nearly hurt as much as the ones currently on my body do. Out of nowhere, a chill suddenly runs down my spine and I shudder.

Last night wasn’t exactly good either.

Because I pulled out a decent amount of stitches, I had to get them all restitched. My right side never hurt so bad before when that happened… Ripping them out was relieving the pain. But of course, it wouldn’t do any good for me and it’d make a huge mess because of the blood that would spill out. 

“Stay still, okay?” Nurse Kay says softly. 

“Okay.” I sigh.

As I anticipated, the pain wasn’t that bad. My eyes scanned the room to see if Dr. Garner was around. For some reason, she wasn’t. I guess she must have gone to grab a coffee or something like that. I felt my right eye shut at the sudden discomfort from my cheek. I looked at the clock. It was only eleven o’clock. I’d still be in there for another two hours since lunch isn't until 1:00… 

“All done.” Nurse Kay says, putting down the needle. I rub the stitched area with my index finger. My cheek felt weird, but I guess it’s better than my blood spilling all over the place. 

Dr. Garner hasn’t come back yet, which seemed odd. She’s not exactly the individual to be late. Whenever I got injuries, she always came back as soon as I was finished. Only this time, she was 10 minutes late. When she finally did come back, though, she came back with another doctor who I wasn’t familiar with.

“You’ll be working with Dr. Curtis for the remainder of this morning’s session. I have other business to attend to right now.” Dr. Garner says before abruptly leaving. I look up at Dr. Curtis. He had neatly shaved brown hair and a subtle beard. He looked down at his clipboard before looking back at me.

“Marco Bodt, correct?”

“Yes.”

“Let’s go back to your testing chamber.”

* * *

I didn’t expect this at all, but Dr. Curtis and Dr. Garner share the same mindset when it comes to tests.

I weakly tried to stand up as the weight of the rubble on top of me forbade me from getting up. Even though the technology used to create these kinds of scenarios was cool and interesting, they felt so real. My back began to ache the more I tried pushing up. I was afraid that my back would end up snapping into two.

“Come on now, get up. If you don’t, those things are going to be sure to rip you apart.” Dr. Curtis spoke, putting a hand on the wall. My fist tightened as the sounds of mutations started coming nearer. They were probably searching for me. Combining all my strength into one ball, I pushed the debris off my back and quickly ducked behind a tree. I felt the muscles in my back stretch out and become sore, but I couldn’t let that stop me.

_ ‘Just get through this period of testing and you’ll be alright. No big deal.’  _ I thought.

Just when things couldn’t get any harder, the setting switched to night time. “Oh come on!” I yelled. Turning around, one of the mutations leaped at me and knocked me to the ground. I instantly got into a power struggle, but quickly got out with one stab to the throat.

I was quite surprised with the weak points for these things. You’d probably expect them to be indestructible. The only reason why people think that is because their bodies can handle things like gunshots really well, but when it comes to close ranged combat their bodies break quite easily. In fact, the mutations are still partly human, so they still technically have human weaknesses. Of course though, this could just depend on the mutation. I’d say they’re just more dangerous when it comes to fighting with them because of their strength and speed. 

I was sure glad that Reiner let me have a look at the book he had this morning.

I started running towards a hill to check out the area. This was my first time using the Advanced Hologram Technology. I wasn’t sure why it was called that when holograms are usually see-through and you could stick your hand right through them, but I brushed the thought off. I’m not exactly familiar with technology anyway.

Two slower-moving mutations caught sight of me and began making their way up the hill. One of them possessed a dark aura surrounding their body. I smirked, knowing they were easy targets. I could use my speed to my advantage and take them out in one swift motion.

Once I got into a running stance, I bolted down the hill and slashed both their throats. The blood shot out of them, but because it was fake, none of it actually splattered onto me. I dug my blade in so deep and created such a gaping wound into the enemy to the point where I could actually see the inside of it’s throat. I felt myself gag slightly. I ripped out the blade and tried to catch my breath.

I glanced at the scenery. It was starting to change again. A hard whip of cold, snowy air hit the back of my torso. My body began to shiver as I felt the snowflakes scratch my skin. In fact, they felt more like ince instead of snowflakes. I couldn’t believe how real the whole place felt… Even if it was just a hologram chamber. 

The fog covered the air like a thick blanket. It would be hard to see enemies approaching me, but I had to surpass the obstacle in front of me— quite literally.

Hearing something coming towards me, I ducked behind a nearby tree, breathing heavily. I went to grab my knife, but found that I accidentally dropped it somewhere in the area. I noticed a few icicles hanging on the branches. It wouldn’t be bad to try and use it as a weapon. I grabbed the sharp stick and looked at it. I randomly noticed a faint red glow coming from my eyes. I gripped the icicle tightly, feeling the ice-cold water touch my palms.

_ ‘Why are my eyes glowing?’ _ I thought to myself. Turning my head, I saw one of the mutations looking directly at me. I screamed and stabbed the icicle into its face before making a run for it. My whole body began to freeze. I didn’t realize how numb my body was feeling. I was in desperate need of warmth at this point.

I slid behind another tree, hugging myself tightly. What did Dr. Curtis want me to do  _ now _ ? Just try and survive for a few minutes? Maybe half an hour. I grit my teeth and tried to see if anything was approaching me. The weird red glow from my eyes faded away since I couldn’t see the light bouncing off the icicles anymore. I sat down and looked at my hands. They were so red and numb. I mean, my whole right side is cold and numb sometimes, but my left side was starting to feel it.

When I looked back at the icicles, the red glow appeared again. Looking behind me, I saw another mutation holding some kind of energy in its hands. I scrambled to my feet and dashed across the snow, trying to dodge the balls of plasma that were being thrown towards me. While I ran, my mind would think about why my eyes glowed red for an unknown reason. I realized that I was able to sense  _ danger _ . If my eyes were glowing red, danger was near. The further I was away from it, the duller my eyes became.

I was finally relieved to hear the room power down and return to its normal state. Dr. Curtis stepped towards me, writing something down on his clipboard as he did so. He handed me a clean pair of clothes and told me to go to the washroom and take a nice, long, hot shower. I smiled widely and hurried off to the washroom. Maybe he isn’t as harsh as I thought he would be.

As I walked down the hallway, I couldn’t help but feel like something was off.  _ ‘It’s probably nothing, Marco. You’re fine.’  _ I said to myself. Despite me trying to dismiss my worries, I still couldn’t shake the feeling off me.

I exclaimed happily as I finally found the washroom. “Time to take a long, well deserved hot bath.” I whispered quietly, opening the door. I walked over to one of the showers and quickly got the water running. I sighed, feeling the steamy touch of hot water run down my back and wet my hair. I spent some time just standing in the shower, not thinking of much in particular. I felt more relaxed since that uneasy feeling had diminished the second I turned the tap on. 

I knew Dr. Curtis said to take a nice long shower, but he never specified when I should finish. I looked up at the clock, estimating how long I was already inside for. Maybe fifteen minutes at the most? I figured that I’d shower for another five, then dry myself off and change into my new clothes. All of that would take ten to fifteen minutes and the total time would be 30 minutes. It seemed reasonable to me.

I grabbed the bottle of shampoo and began to lather my hair with the soap. Just until it became all fluffy and white, I placed my head under the running water. I started to laugh, thinking about the time Reiner accidentally got a lot of soap in his eye after a shower. His eye was really red and it stung for quite a while. At least it’s better than other things like…

Getting your plates ripped out?

I shook my head as the thought popped in. Let’s not think about that.

I turned off the tap and grabbed the towel, throwing it onto my wet body. Stepping out, I dried myself off, starting from the top of my head and going downwards. I was delighted to feel warm and not freezing. The lab was already cold enough. Did they not have a heater?

Slipping on my new clothes, I looked into the mirror to tidy up my hair. Once that was done, I tossed the towel and wet clothes into the bin in the corner of the room labeled “laundry” and headed back to the room. The moment I stepped out, the uneasy feeling returned to my stomach again. I turned my head to the hallway on the left and looked at the wall, trying to see which sector of the lab I was in. A big white-coloured “T” was sitting just above a white line. I was in the Testing Sector.

So why was I feeling like something was wrong?

I knew my room was on the right, but my gut was telling me to check out the other side. I wasn’t allowed to go anywhere without the permission of the doctors or go without an escort. Regardless, I started walking down the hallway, staying cautious. I looked ahead before continuing just in case a doctor, security guard— anyone was there. I didn’t want to get caught. The thought about getting caught scared me, even in the slightest. It didn’t really affect me as much now though since I kept turning this into, “Just pretend you’re a child sneaking around the house because you wanted an extra cookie” kind of thing.

Childish, I know. It made me a bit more clamer though.

I managed to find one of the rooms and I peeked my head through the window. Unfortunately, I didn’t see anyone there. I continued walking until I noticed a gigantic “P” encased with a white circle. Turning around, I decided to go back. I knew I would be in really big trouble if I went there. My eye suddenly caught something in the corner.

Dr. Garner? What was she doing there?

“How hard did you hit him, Rachel?” She spoke in the distance.

“I guess I hit him hard. He’ll be fine. He’ll probably be unresponsive for two or three days, but I think he’ll live.”

The two doctors chuckled as they stepped back inside the room. ‘ _ What were they talking about?’  _ I thought in a panicked manner.  _ ‘What did she do to that person? Are they going to be okay? Is it Reiner again?’  _ I wanted to follow them and try to see who they were talking about, but the door to the sector was closed off. I didn’t know how to access it. 

Remembering that my shower time was long overdue, I sprinted down the room in a flash. Dr. Curtis looks up from the book he was reading and sets his glasses onto the table. I bit my lip nervously, hoping I didn’t take too long.

“How was your shower?” He asked.

“Fine, thank you.”

Dr. Curtis nods and takes a look at me. “Ready to continue?” I nod and step inside the chamber once again. I watch as the room glows a deep navy blue with numbers, charts, and buttons scattered across the front. Dr. Curtis taps the glass with his finger where the holographic buttons were and selects another test for me to participate in. I clench my fists and take in a deep breath as the noise indicates he’s selected a test. 

In a flash, soldiers show up. Confused, I turn my head to Dr. Curtis for an explanation. He catches my confusion and conjures up an answer.

“I want to see how well you can use your attributes to your advantage. Choose any that will help you eliminate all targets.” He says, looking at the control panel.

“Why am I fighting humans?” I ask.   
“Who knows. What if you ever need to?”

_ ‘Let’s just get it done.’  _ I say, shaking off the idea. Dr. Curtis steps inside and hands me a new blade. I grip the handle tightly and look at my reflection shining on the metal. He shuts the chamber, and presses the start button to initiate the countdown.

“This test will be done to see how efficiently you can use your attributes in human combat. To proceed, eliminate all targets. Your test will begin in fifteen seconds. Good luck.

And  _ don’t  _ lose focus.”

I take in a deep breath, trying to clear my mind of all the excess thoughts. I listened to the automated voice counting down the remaining seconds.

_ Five… _

_ Four… _

_ Three… _

As the voice ceased I instantly dashed behind the wooden boxes to keep myself out of sight. I peeked over the crates, counting how many targets there were. I felt like I was on a stealth mission which is not  _ entirely _ wrong. Gripping my knife, I got up and ran across the platform, slashing one of the soldier’s throats quickly. I ducked under the bridge shortly after, panting heavily.

I could hear them shouting orders up above. I looked through one of the cracks in the wooden bridge, trying to see what was going on. Though, I couldn’t. One of the guys had their boot directly on the crack. Gritting my teeth, I held my blade again and dashed over behind the trees. I shut my eyes tightly, hoping they hadn’t seen me. Taking in a deep breath, I opened my eyes and peered over the tree. 

_ ‘Next target.’  _ I thought.

Then screaming came.

I quickly hid myself behind the tree again. It was probably the screaming of one of the soldiers. Though, I found it odd if it  _ was _ the source of the sound. I hadn't bitten them yet and injected any poison or weird effects into their body. Shaking my head, I brushed off the thought and lunged at one soldier, knocking him to the ground before swiping my blade across his neck. I gritted my teeth as I felt another soldier grab my arm. In return, I bit down on his arm, injecting a poison that would make him weaker. However, I didn’t let go and ripped out a piece of his flesh with my jaw.

I listened to him scream in pain, but I had to get that past me and not make the job any more difficult than it was already. Dr. Curtis wasn’t wrong about people trying to kill me. That could be the case in such a ruined and dysfunctional world. Maybe they’re attacking me because they want to capture me; use me for their own benefit most likely for worse. Or maybe they do just want to kill me because I’m too dangerous.

There wasn’t any more time for me to stop and hide anymore. I’d already exposed myself too much. I kept dashing across the ground since I knew they wouldn’t be able to catch me at the pace I was running at. This power was surely a blessing.

While I was running, I had probably slashed about thirteen different necks and inflicted five effects onto the targets. I looked at them indifferently. They were only holograms. I could only hope my stomach could handle doing the real thing.

Out of nowhere, screaming came again.

But this time, it didn’t come from the chamber. I could tell.

A hard hand pushes my face to the ground and slams the right side of my head into the pavement. I grunt only a little since it didn’t hurt as much, but I knew I was bleeding. I felt a hand try to pin my arm behind me. Using my free hand, I took the dagger from my right hand and stabbed the man in the cheek. After being able to stand back up again, I dashed somewhere far and took a minute or two to breathe. My stroke wasn’t very effective, but it was just enough to get out of his grip. 

I touched my cheek and noticed the blood that dripped down on it. Sighing, I wiped the blood on my fingers onto my pants. I got back into a fighting stance, but the scream from earlier entered my brain again. I wasn’t sure why I could hear it, but I knew it was something bad. Then again, I didn’t know if I could hear things beyond the chamber. The thoughts and predictions made me lose even more focus.

The sound of a nearby bomb landing at my feet snapped me awake and I quickly sprinted away from the explosive. I gritted my teeth and saw a couple more get thrown directly at me. I had nothing to get rid of them so all I could do was dodge. Jean could probably stop them with a barrier made out of his crystals and Reiner might not even get a scratch considering how tough his body was.

Bomb after bomb, I kept running away and slashing whoever was in front of me. I counted the remaining targets once again. I grinned in satisfaction. Only ten or so people were left. Rushing over to the next person, I slashed my blade at them, only to realize I had missed them. I groaned and tried to attack again, but they dodge me once again. Frustration began to kick in and I harshly bit down on their arm, trying to inject some of my serums inside their body. Shock and realization hit my face when I found that their clothing was too thick for me to penetrate. I jumped back, trying to get out of there as fast as I could.

Then screaming came again. I stopped dead in my tracks for a moment, trying to process it. If I listened closely enough, I could make out words.

Words that were  _ beginning _ for help. 

_ “Please let me out! I’m going to die in here!”  _ The voice cried.

I let out a gasp, recognizing the voice.

Bertholdt…?!

  
  


My body violently hit the ground and I felt someone dig their hands into my hair. I grunted as I was lifted up roughly by one of the enemies who had grabbed me by the hair. Out of nowhere, I was punched in the face and I felt my nose start to bleed. Not having much physical strength, getting up was hard for me, especially since there were three different people apprehending me. My wrists began to burn as the rope rubbed against my skin. Feeling defeated, I dropped my head to the ground.

The test came to a close, signaling me that I had failed. I picked myself up and rubbed my wrists. Dr. Curtis came towards me with a box of tissues and let me out of the chamber. He sighed heavily, sounding disappointed. If Dr. Garner and him both sighed side by side, they would both radiate the same amount of disappointment in their demeanour.

“What did I tell you Marco?” Dr. Curtis says, scolding me harshly. “I told you not to lose focus. May I ask what made you so distracted?”

“I heard someone screaming…” I sigh, then remember who it probably was. “I-Is Bertholdt okay?”

  
“Bertholdt? Who—?”

“He’s in one of the testing rooms— the dark room! Is he okay?”

Dr. Curtis steps away and turns his back to me. “I don’t know anything about your friend, sorry. You may as well go ask the doctor managing him.” 

Despite my frustration, I nod and press my nose together to try and get the blood to stop dripping. I felt bad knowing Bertholdt was getting hurt in there again and that the doctors weren’t doing anything to help him. I dreaded the thought of Reiner having to see him in bandages again.

Wait, bandages,  _ injuries _ . 

The person getting hurt in that room.

While Dr. Curtis still seemed distracted with his work, I decided to ask him a question. “Dr. Curtis?” I spoke softly. He takes off his reading glasses and looks up at me blankly.

“Yes?”   
“Where is Dr. Garner?”

Dr. Curtis looks back down and returns to his work, but doesn’t leave me answerless. “She’s working with the other doctors in another room. She’ll be back later.”

Something told me that I knew which doctor she was talking to, but I couldn’t think of what her last name might have been. Rachel? Rachel who? I don’t recall any of the doctors’ first names. . Maybe she was an assistant. Rachel could be the name of anyone in this facility

Though, I knew for sure it was a doctor.

“Who is she with right now?” I asked, biting my lip. Dr. Curtis looks at me, taking my question into consideration. 

“I’m afraid I can’t tell you. I only know her. I’m not familiar with the other doctors here.” 

I ball my fist and nod my head, despite being frustrated. I sit down as Dr. Curtis submits the rest of his information. Bringing my knees up, I hug them tightly as I sit on the chair. My eyes shut as I think about the person in that room. It couldn’t be Bertholdt, since I’m pretty sure they said he’s knocked out. Plus, Bertholdt doesn’t get many physical tests. He mostly has ones to do with his psychic-energy powers and his hallucinations. It could be Reiner too. After all, I’d say 80% of his tests are to do with physical pain too. Or…

It could be Jean.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey :D
> 
> I hope you're enjoying the story!
> 
> I have been making stuff like art and playlists but unfortunately, I'm not sure where to share it all yet. (Plus, I'm kinda being picky with my art style right now and it's so annoying.) I'll probably put it on my Tumblr, but again, still not sure.
> 
> By the way, This story seems to be booming holy. It has 600 hits and like 45 kudos! Thank you so much! I'll keep doing my best to get these chapters out. :>
> 
> Anyway,
> 
> Thank you so much for keeping up with Experiment! See you next week!


	12. Breaking Point (Reiner's POV)

For the past few weeks, the doctors have been checking out my regeneration abilities. Though, it hasn’t been easy. I groan at the sight of bandages covering my torso. The injuries on my arms from yesterday are still here, but they seem to need a few more hours of healing before they’re injury-free. I look up at Dr. Atkinson’s assistant, Dr. Walton, who coughs into her arm. Dr. Atkinson backs away slightly.

“I hope you didn’t catch the plague, Clarine.” He chuckles.

“Of course not. I just have a dry throat.” She says.

Mentioning coughing and sicknesses made me irritated. For some reason, my body can regenerate at high speeds and I can barely feel any pain at all sometimes. But getting sick? Sicknesses were my weak point. I didn’t know why, but I seem to get sick very easily. I’ve gotten a fever and a cold more than once and I am stuck  _ here _ . I couldn’t even trace back to where and how I’d get sick in the first place. 

Maybe I should ask Marco about it. He’s familiar with medical and science stuff for some odd reason. Even though he doesn’t read about it, the guy’s pretty intelligent. I remember my stomach felt really sick once and Marco was able to “diagnose me” in a way I guess. 

Huh. Seems odd though.

Didn’t Marco say he wanted to become a doctor in his dream?

Well, I don’t even know if that’s real, but I guess it is since he knows about that kind of stuff. Now we just have to figure out what else was real about it.

Dr. Atkinson taps my shoulder, telling me to come with him. Our long experimentation and testing periods were finally over. I stepped out of the room and followed Dr. Atkinson to our room, the confinement room. I saw Marco through the glass windows and waved to him. When he waved back, I noticed a bandage running across his left arm since his sleeve was rolled up. He smiled nervously at me, trying to show me that he was alright. 

“Hey Marco.” I spoke as I stood beside Marco.

“Hey Reiner. You alright?”

“Yeah I’m fine this time.” Marco breathes out a sigh of relief. Was he stressed about something? No, maybe he was worried. Whatever it was had something to do with injury. It made sense anyway since I was usually the one who got the more tougher experiments.

“Reiner… I gotta tell you something.” Marco says, looking at me with a serious face. I felt sweat drip down my cheek.

“Yeah?”

“Lean in a bit closer.”

“I… I went through one of the sectors and I came across Sector P. I saw Dr. Garner talking with another doctor in there about… Hitting someone too hard in the head. I know I wasn’t supposed to be there, but I just got too curious. For a moment, I thought it was  _ you  _ in there. But since you’re right here now, it can’t be you.”

My eyes widened at the information Marco had told me. My fist tightened at the thought of Bertholdt being the person who was subjected to their brutal experiments. Marco looked up and me looking more stressed about what he was going to say next.

“I-I don’t think they were talking about Bertholdt… One of the doctors with her admitted to hitting that person in the head with something. She hit them so hard at they’re knocked out completely. I don’t see why they’d hit Bertholdt out of all people. So if you’re here… That must mean Jean’s the one who got injured in the head…”

Marco’s eyes quickly flicker grey. I could tell he was scared. Grey in his eyes meant he was frightened or worried about something. I felt some of the tension in my shoulders disappear knowing that Bertholdt wasn’t the one with the serious injury, but it still killed me to know that Jean was the one who got it. He’s only been here for less than three  _ days _ . Why the hell did they think it was a good idea to injure him right off the bat?!

“Fuck. I hope he’s okay. Will he wake up soon?”

“I heard them say he’d lay unresponsive for two days…”

Two days? Two days is a pretty long time in my opinion. Well, not as long as it took me to even start speaking when I participated in that one life-threatening experiment. Still, I didn’t want Marco to feel so worried about Jean like how Bertholdt was with me. There was always the possibility of the doctors being wrong about their information, but what was the chance of that?

“Reiner, did you hear Bertholdt screaming in the dark room?”

My body began to burn up and feel tense once again. Anger started to squirm into my consciousness. I had to get it under control or else I could seriously end up hurting someone. I took in a deep breath and exhaled out slowly and quietly. 

“No… I didn’t hear it this time. I guess I was too caught up in whatever Dr. Atkinson was doing to me. Is he okay? Did you see him?” 

Marco shakes his head. “I didn’t, sorry.” 

“It’s okay.”

Just as we finished talking, the doors slid open. Bertholdt weakly walked inside, looking really exhausted. I rushed over to help him keep balance and helped him walk to our beds. Me and Marco began towering over him, asking if he was alright. My eyes widened once more at the sight of various bandages that covered his body. 

My blood started to boil after that.

“Bertholdt?! Oh God… Are you okay?” I shouted with worry. From his face expression, I could tell how much pain he was in. I knew it had something to do with his hallucinations again. Though, that’s been the cause of his injuries for the past few weeks. Sweat started to drip down his forehead and his face was a little paler than usual. I grit my teeth. He was having a headache.

“A-Ah… Everything hurts… My… Haah… Head hurts… A lot…” 

“You’ll be okay.” Marco spoke, checking his forehead. “Yeah that’s gotta be a headache. A pretty painful one too by the looks of it. S-Stay here I’m gonna go ask Dr. Hunter to take me to Nurse Kay and I’ll grab you some medicine. Just fetch him a bottle of water from the cabinet Reiner and keep him hydrated.”

I nodded and headed over to the cabinet in the corner of our room. I pulled out a bottle of water and looked inside for something Bertholdt could eat. I frowned at the sight of marshmallows, but I knew he’d eat them anyway. Marshmallows were one of the only sweet snacks in there beside chocolate and occasional cookies. My eyes caught a small orange in the back. Picking it up, it’s citrusy scent filled my nose. 

_ ‘He’s gonna eat his marshmallows first before the orange.’  _ I thought, chuckling to myself.

“Hery Bert. Drink some water.” I handed the bottle of water to him and helped him sit up so he wouldn’t choke. Bertholdt gulped down about half the bottle before handing it back to me. I felt his eyes look at the small bag of marshmallows, but I quickly got to peeling the fresh orange.

“You can eat the marshmallows after, Bertl.” I chuckled.

“Fine… Healthy stuff first.” He pouted. 

Laughing, I poked his cheek which made Bertholdt’s eye glow again. He groaned in embarrassment and turned it off with the swipe of his hand. I handed him the peeled orange and turned my head to find that Marco came back with the medicine. 

“Here. Take one of these. You should feel better in a couple hours. Just tell me if it doesn’t go away and I’ll get you to the infirmary.” Marco spoke, handing the pill to Bertholdt with a gentle smile.

“T-Thanks…” He took the pill and swallowed it with the water. Relieved, I sat down next to him and grabbed his arm.

“You okay? How are your arms? Hands?”

“Sore… My back is sore and hurting too but—”

Suddenly, Bertholdt cut himself off. He stared blankly at the metal wall across from us with a dull look in his eyes. I felt worry engulf my body again.

  
  


“Bert? Bertholdt?”

“A-Ah… Sorry I just…”

“What is it?” Marco spoke, leaning in closer.

_ “I-Is Jean okay?” _

“We don’t know... “ Marco spoke. We heard the doors open again and we all turned our heads to the sound, thinking Jean had come in. Instead, it was Dr. Hunter and Dr. Holt. My face frowned when they started walking towards us. I couldn’t help but feel angry and irritated for such careless testing. I’ve let them off so many times to the point where I can’t give any anymore. Sure, hurting me violently is fine since I  _ know _ I can regenerate, but what about Jean? What are you going to do if he  _ can’t _ piece himself back together like I can?

“We—”

“Where the fuck is Jean and what did you do to him?” I spoke angrily, balling my fists. Dr. Holt looked at me with an irritated expression and Dr. Hunter just sighed like he was already tired of dealing with us. 

“Jean is in our facility’s Intensive Care Unit. He got an injury from today’s experimentation. He’s unresponsive, but he’ll be better within two or three days. Just be patient, alright?”

I blinked twice. I felt like I was being slapped in the face. Instead of it hurting though, it was more like I was stunned once the hand hit me. Intensive Care Unit? I was there a couple times, but now Jean was there? My head began to feel fuzzy and warm. 

“What did you do?” I spoke in a serious tone. “What did you do to him?! Why is he in there?!”

“I believe I cannot disclose that.” Dr. Holt says with tight lips.

“Then how come you could disclose it to me when Reiner had that serious injury?” Bertholdt snaps. I turn my head and catch the sincere look on his face.

“Is it because you caused it?”   
“Dr. Holt can disclose it if she wants to.”

“She just has to say—”

“Rachel.” A voice calls from the hallway. To my surprise, it’s Dr. Garner. What was she doing here?

“His skull is reforming quite nicely the shards—”

Dr. Garner looks down at the rest of us. The somewhat excited expression on her face had disappeared. Dr. Holt looks up at her intimidatingly. Before she could walk over to the other doctor, Marco stood up.

“Dr. Holt… You did this…?”

Dr. Holt sighs, turning her head to Marco.

“Marco—”

“Why?”   
“Marco, how do you know this?” 

Marco gulped and nervously turned his head to me. I shrugged my shoulders, not sure of what to tell him. Dr. Holt steps in front of him, covering Marco in her shadow. 

“Tell me and I will answer your questions.” She says.

Marco looks down and looks at me again. I sighed heavily, nodding my head shortly afterwards. He takes in a deep breath and his eyes flicker a vibrant orange.

“After my shower, I wanted to look around the Sector. It wasn’t until I accidentally… Um… Saw you and Dr. Garner talking. But… Why did you hit him?! Don’t you realize how dangerous that is?! If Jean was unlucky in that moment, he would have died! I know these tests are to see what we can do, if we can survive things normal humans can’t, but don’t you think this is a little too much?!”

“Our testing and experimentation is indeed life-threatening and intense. If you want to see the surface and survive out there, getting hurt in here is necessary. Unless, of course, you’d rather be torn to shreds and have your attributes go to waste.”

“We aren’t just test subjects, you know that right? We’re  _ humans! _ Even if it takes more to kill us, we can still die like them!” I shout. 

“You’re  _ far _ from human, Reiner.” Dr. Holt says in a cold tone.

The words begin to ring inside my head, circling around as if they were taunting me. My fist began to tighten and my body began to burn up. Something was building up inside of me. That same feeling from that night with Bertholdt. That same night where all of this shit started to happen. 

Something like a Breaking Point.

“Do you think I asked to become the monstrosity I am right now?! Do you think Bertholdt, Marco, or Jean wanted that?! Of course we didn’t! Why can’t you guys understand that we  _ know _ we aren’t human! This dumb fucking world fucked up our minds— our  _ bodies, _ and you’re telling me something I already know?! Don’t you know how much we wish to gain our memories back?! To live a normal life up there?!”

“We know, Reiner. But calm down for a moment. You have to understand that this is for your own good. I’m sorry that we can’t restore your memories or take you back to your families. This is what has to be done in order to ensure your safety. The public doesn’t even know about you four yet. What if they saw you? They’d kill you for sure.”

Without a second thought, I lunged at her.

“I’d say we have a higher chance of dying in here than we do out there! How many times has Bertholdt wound up in bandages?! How many times does Marco get cuts and scars from training?! How many times have I ended up in the infirmary because you guys think it’s fine to chop up whatever part of my body and see if it grows back?! Do you not  _ care _ about our safety?!”

“R-Reiner! Stop!” Marco shouts, trying to pull me back. I’m this close to being able to punch Dr. Holt in her face. Adrenaline rushed through every bit of my body, making my heart race faster and faster. I feel Bertholdt’s arms wrap around the lower part of my torso, trying to restrain me as well.

That Breaking Point. The same feeling from those nights ago is building up in my body again, getting stronger and stronger with every second.

“I swear to God I’ll—”

Suddenly, my knees began to feel weak. My wrist began to ache and I collapsed onto the ground. I held my head and found that my hands and fingers were trembling. Bertholdt and Marco looked at me with worry. I noticed something dripping on Marco’s mouth. The second I looked at it, he wiped it away. 

“Look at that. You’re unstable.” Dr. Holt sighs, turning her back to me. “No more recreation time outside confinement this week. That will be the punishment.”

Punishment? Since when did they give us punishments? I gritted my teeth. Dr. Holt wasn’t my fucking mother. I grunted as my wrist began to pulse weirdly. I rolled up my sleeve and found a bite mark covered in a clear liquid. I looked up at Marco who had an apologetic look on his face. He sighed, looking away from me.

“I’m sorry. I knew you’d get into trouble if I didn’t stop you. Here, let me take it off.” Marco reaches for my wrist and bites down on the spot once again. For a few seconds, my body feels weak. After a while, it went back to normal.

“No, it’s okay. Thank you. I lost control of myself there.” I say, looking down at my fist. Bertholdt turns my head to face him and our eyes meet.

“Are you okay…?” He asks.

“I am. Don’t worry.” I reply.

“It’s just… I’m so tired of seeing you guys come back with bandages. I know how worried you guys get when I become unresponsive. Like… You guys must be so tired. I just don’t want you guys to one day not come back from those experiments. It’d kill me to know I couldn’t do something to help you…” 

I didn’t realize it at first, but I felt something drip down my cheek. A moment after, Bertholdt encases me in a hug. I feel his breath hit my shoulder and the side of my neck as he begins to cry. When I look up at Marco, he’s crying too and eventually, he joins the hug. The tears in my eyes began flowing like a river as I hugged my two friends tightly, not daring to let them go. 

“We worried about you too as well, Reiner.” Marco says, his voice still strong and clear. Bertholdt further buries his face into my shoulder, sobbing softly.

“H-He’s not wrong… What if one day your body just can’t h-hold up anymore?” He says with a trembling voice.

“Let’s not think about that now, okay?” I sigh, clearing my voice. For the next few minutes, we sat there crying in silence. We held each other tight, not letting go. The only thing we could do now was pray that Jean would return back all healed and okay.

* * *

I never wrote much in my journal. I didn’t really need to write anything down. Bertholdt and Marco do, though. Looking down at their journals, they had dozens of pages filled out. I smiled softly and closed my book, placing it in one of the cabinet drawers. I notice the chessboard hanging around in the back of the shelf above me and I pull it out.

“Hey, wanna play chess? It’s been a while.” I say, looking down at Bertholdt and Marco. Bertl’s eyes glow and he quickly nods yes. 

“Yes! It surely has been a while…” Bertholdt opens up the case and sets the board down on the ground. He picks up the chess pieces, neatly arranging them across the white and black tiles. I think back to the first time we played chess. We haven’t played ever since Marco got here because we got bored of playing one on one games.

“I’ll watch. I’ve never played chess before.” Marco says, sitting down beside us. “Is it like checkers? To me that’s what it looks and feels like.”

“I guess so? Well, you have pieces and they all do something. For example, bishops can only move diagonally and the queen can move however she likes. Whereas pawns can’t move very far once they’ve reached the board’s halfpoint. The rules are quite simple. The game is just really strategic.” Bertholdt says, placing the last piece down. 

“Now, you first or me?”

“After you, Prince Bertholdt.”

“E-Eh?! I-I’m no Prince!” Bertholdt exclaims, blushing furiously. I let out a chuckle and crossed my arms.

“You surely are to me.”

“Geez, when will you two kiss already?” Marco says, teasing us with a playful look. I begin to blush too and I roll my eyes, brushing off his remark. Looking down at the chessboard, I pick up a piece and place it on the tile two spaces ahead of it. 

As we play, a sudden thought enters my head. Since I was calming myself down, I distracted myself from this morning’s outburst. For some reason, the thought of escaping this place seemed appealing to me. What if one day one of us  _ does  _ die because of all this extreme and unnecessary testing? I’m sure we’d be able to survive out there after we’ve learned and mastered most of our powers. I’m not sure what we would do once we got out, but I knew we had to get out of here.

“Hey, guys?” I say, suddenly breaking the group’s silence. Marco and Bertholdt turn their heads to me with a confused expression. 

“Yeah? What is it?”

“What if we left the lab?”

Marco’s face changes to shock. “You’re not joking, right?” He says, putting a hand over his mouth in surprise. 

“I’m not. I strongly believe that this is best for us, wouldn’t you say? We can finally get rid of the doctors and pain. Sure, maybe surviving outside would be much harder, but think about it. We’ll be able to do whatever we want. Maybe we can even find our homes.”

“You really think we can do that? Find our way home?” 

“Yes. Maybe our parents will be alive too.”

“I thought my parents died when I was hit with the radiation…” Bertholdt says, looking sad. I put a hand on his shoulder and smile at him gently.

“Don’t worry Bert. Even if that is the case, we’ll be there to comfort you.” Bertholdt nods and looks back down at the chessboard, moving another piece. Marco rests his chin on his hand, watching our game continue with strong interest.

“How do you think we’d get out?” Bertholdt asks, swapping a piece.

“No idea yet. We should wait till Jean is all better to discuss.”

“Good point. I wouldn’t want the guy to miss anything. He should be here to plan with us.” Marco frowns suddenly after I finish talking.

“Are you sure he’d be okay with doing this, though?”

“Hence why I said we’d wait for him, Marco.”

“Alright, alright.” He chuckles as his eyes flicker brown. I pause for a moment, thinking over my answer. I turn to the camera in the corner of the room and watch the red light blink every so often. I knew it was recording us, but could it pick up sound? My head began to take apart my thoughts and rearrange them neatly. If they were able to pick up sound, then they would have already heard my conversation by now. If not, then that’s a good thing. We’d be able to discuss more freely. 

I turned my head to the doors, thinking someone had come inside. There wasn’t anybody there, but another question came into my mind. How would I know if the doctors  _ did  _ catch onto my conversation? I stared at the ground, lost in thought. A few moments after, I felt a little lightbulb hover over my head. I just need to see how they act around us. They’ll be bound to be more suspicious and interested in what we’re doing and be a little more stricter on us. 

“Reiner? Reiner? Are you okay?”

“Huh?” I turned around and saw Bertholdt and Marco looking at me weirdly. I chuckled nervously, realizing that I had been too busy thinking about escaping and I ended up forgetting about our game. “Sorry, sorry. I was thinking a little too much there.”

“It’s okay.” Bert says with a soft smile. I pick up my chess piece, taking one of his and placing it on my side of the board. 

“Hey guys,” I say, watching Bertholdt move another chess piece. “Do you think the cameras in the room can pick up sound?”

“I don’t… Know?” Marco says, looking up at the camera in the far left. “Maybe if they have a device that picks up sound. Microphone? I think that’s what it’s called. Though, I’m pretty sure they’re built in the camera so you’d have to dismantle it to find it. I dunno, I may be wrong though. Technology isn’t really my thing.”

“Yeah.” I chuckle, leaning back in my chair. “You’re super familiar with genetics and science. I wonder why.”

“Who knows.”

“I win!”

“Oh shit you did.” I say in shock. Looking down at the board, I found that I accidentally left my king in a vulnerable position. Sighing, I facepalm in defeat. Guess I did get too caught up in my own thoughts. I’m such a dumbass haha. 

“That was fun. We should play again sometime. Maybe I can teach Marco how to play too.” Bertholdt says, picking up the scattered chess pieces and dropping them into the case. 

“That’d be great. I’d love to learn how to play someday.” Marco says with a smile. His eyes follow Bertholdt as he puts away the chess board. Suddenly, his face becomes gloomy. I put a hand on his shoulder in comfort.

“What’s wrong?” I ask.

“I was gonna suggest playing a board game tonight… Y’know, do something fun. But I guess we can’t since Jean isn’t here now.” Marco’s blue eyes glisten in the light as they land on the four player game sitting on the shelf. I look down, not sure of what to say at that moment.

“He’ll be okay.” I say, trying to comfort him.

“I really hope so.” Marco sighs, looking down.

Looking up at the clock, I found that time seemed to fly by really quickly. It was suddenly 4:36. Dinner wouldn’t be until 5:45, though. I sighed, placing my elbow on the table and placing my chin on my fist. There wasn’t exactly much we could do right now since Dr. Holt forbade us from going to any of the other locations in the lab for the rest of the week, so we had to make do with our items in the room. I looked at the drawers sitting against the wall. Getting up, I walked over to mine to see if I had anything I could use in there. My eyes scanned over the numbers taped onto it where names should be.

001, 002, 003, 004.

Digging into my drawer, I pushed away the items that covered the ones under them. I haven’t had the time to organize it, so it was a complete mess. I found lots of stuff I forgot I had too. My eyes landed on this one device that seemed to be buried under everything else. It sat at the very bottom of my drawer. I reached in and pulled it out, blowing some of the dirt and dust off the screen. I couldn’t recall getting access to a device, but I wasn’t complaining either.

Upon booting it up, I was surprised to find out that it was still functioning. I realized it was a handheld video game or something like that. Pressing the start button, two lines appeared on the opposite sides of the screen. There was also a line in the middle and a scoring system on top. A ball suddenly appeared and hit the line on the left. 

“Ah, this game.” I said, remembering it. “Guess I’ll mess around with this until I have something else to do.”

Standing up, I saw Marco quietly reading a book in the corner. He’d taken out one of the juice boxes from the cooler and sipped on that as he read. I smirked and placed a hand on my hip.

“So that’s what’s been happening to all the grape juice.” I chuckled, walking towards him. “You little shit.”

“We both know how much I like grape juice.” Marco argued, biting on the plastic straw. “But we both know how much you like Bertholdt~”

“Gah, give that a rest, will you?”

“You’re blushing!”

“Yeah, yeah, whatever. Go drink your grape juice.” Marco laughed as I walked towards the bed, sighing gently. 

_ ‘What a guy.’  _ I thought.

My eyes widened when I saw Bertholdt sprawled out on the ground, sleeping in an absurd position. I couldn’t help but laugh and sit down next to him. My face started to feel warm shortly after. I looked up, hoping that Marco was reading his book and not looking down at me. Thankfully, he wasn’t looking so he couldn’t tease me about my crush on Bertholdt. I swear Marco could tell the second he got here, even without a full day of knowing me and Bert. 

Sighing gently, I took one of the blankets and wrapped the sleepy Bertholdt in it. I chuckled, feeling a smile appear on my face. He was so cute when he slept. The noises from the device rang without warning and I looked down at it in confusion. I forgot to pause the game, so it was scoring points on me without my knowledge. Exhaling sharply, I pressed the pause button and rested the game.

When I looked down, Bertholdt had magically changed his sleeping position again. This time, he was hugging the pillow and blanket. I pinched his right cheek then ruffled his messy black hair before going back to my game.

The only thing left on my mind would be Dr. Holt telling me I was unstable.

Is that the only reason why we’re still here?   
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My dear readers,
> 
> Thank you for being patient! I didn't stick true to my promise last update. I'm so sorry about that. I've been facing a bit of writer's block for the past week which has made this week's update late. I sincerely apologize for that.
> 
> Your support is what makes me continue to write. Thank you for leaving comments, hits, kudos, and following my Tumblr account. 
> 
> Updates on the story are now posted on my Tumblr and feel free to ask me questions. I'd love to answer them :>
> 
> Thank you for keeping up with Experiment! And I hope you all had wonderful Holidays and Winter Breaks! <3


	13. Fever (Bertholdt's POV)

The look of sadness and worry on Marco’s face couldn’t help but make me sad as well. He was so worried about Jean and I felt upset knowing I couldn’t do anything to help him. 

_ ‘Ack… I wish we could speed this up, It’s only been one day.’  _ I thought.

“Eloise, are you able to heal other people besides me?” I said, turning around to see her holding a bottle of pills. She tilted her head, before returning back to whatever she was doing earlier. 

“Mmm I don’t know dear. Why would I want to do that?” Eloise asked, sitting down on the toilet and crossing her legs.

“Because my friend is stuck in this coma-like thing and he won’t wake up. It’s worrying my friend.” I said before spitting out the toothpaste in my mouth. “Can’t you do something?”

“My aid is reserved only for you as of right now.” She looked down at the bottle, eyeing it up and down. “I’ll think about it though.”

“Really?” I spoke, surprised. 

“Maybe. Can’t make promises.”

I nodded my head and filled the small cup with cool water so I could rinse the excess toothpaste out of my mouth. I wiped my mouth with the towel, rinsed my brush, and placed it back in the cabinet. Looking into the mirror, I sighed at the sight of the bandaid that covered my left cheek. I looked down at my arms and rolled up my sleeves to look at the bandages. Why do I have to get injured all the time…? Now I know how Marco feels about getting stitched together…

“You alright? Those wounds are probably bothering you still.” Eloise says, looking at her fingernails. “They won’t fully heal until a week or so has passed, y’know.”

“I know…” I sigh.

“Take this then.”   
  


Eloise hands me a blank, white pill. I felt my body begin to burn up and get nervous. This hasn’t been the first time Eloise has given me medicine that’s apparently supposed to help me feel better. Instead, it does the complete opposite. Make me sick. Or sicker, if that ends up being the case. Though, she did bandage me up when I got injured yesterday and she  _ did _ give me a lollipop.

“You won’t poison me this time, right?”

“Take it if you want me to consider helping your friend.”

A chill ran down my spine and I reluctantly took the pill. She handed me a glass of water, and I gulped it down my throat. I handed the glass back to her and a smile appeared on her face. I opened the door and walked out of the bathroom. 

“Have a nice day!” Eloise said, waving.

“Thank you.”

When I got out, Reiner and Marco were sitting at the table playing a card game. I sat down next to Reiner and watched them go. “What are you guys playing?” I asked, putting a hand under my chin.

“Crazy eights. Ah shit, Marco’s totally gonna screw me at this one. I suck at this game the most.” Reiner says, groaning as he picks up two more cards before finally placing one down on the pile. I chuckle softly and look at Marco’s deck. He only had four cards and Reiner still had eight in his. 

“Ah, it’s only us three again.” Marco says sadly, dealing another card. “Is it too early to say I miss Jean?”

“Not at all. I miss having him around too, even if he’s only been here for less than three days.” Reiner says, grabbing a card from the deck. “He’s a pretty nice and cool guy.”

“Ack, there were so many fun things I wanted to do with him! Now we can’t because he’s going to be out for another day or two… It almost feels like forever.” 

“I get what you mean Marco. It felt like forever when Reiner was stuck in that coma.” I say, looking down nervously.

“Oh right… That must have been worse than this.”

“I-It’s okay. Your feelings are still valid, Marco.”

Marco smiles despite the blue tone in his eyes. He looks back down at his deck, gasps, then deals the last two remaining cards. “Woohoo! Another win!” He says, throwing his hands up in the air. I laugh quietly and look at Reiner who has his arms crossed, saying things like “Congrats Marco” and “Yeah, yeah, we knew you’d beat me”.

“Want to play with us next round?” Marco says, cleaning up the deck and shuffling the cards.

“Sure.” I reply, helping him deal the cards. 

* * *

_ ‘Do you feel safer now when you’re with me?’ _

“In a way, yeah.”   
  


I couldn’t help but realize how… Friendly my hallucinations started to become. Sure, once in a while they did do despicable things, but everything started to become more peaceful and less chaotic. Luanna rested her head on my shoulder and I patted her head softly. She smiled with glee, snuggling closer to me. I didn’t expect it, but Eloise showed up a moment later.

“Hello Bertholdt.” She says with a bright grin. “How are you feeling?”

“I’m fine.”

“Good to know!”

Then she walked away immediately, leaving my mind confused. I tilted my head at Luanna and all she did was the same thing. The doors suddenly opened and Luanna hugged me goodbye. For once, I stepped out of the dark room without any harm done to me. I didn’t know why, but it made me very happy.

“It doesn’t seem like much happened in there.” Dr. Leitner spoke, sitting down on the chair in front of me. “Could you tell me why?”

“In all honesty, I don’t know.” I spoke, playing with my fingers. “I-I’m just glad though since I didn’t get… Hurt.”

“Good for you, but not really for us.” Dr. Leitner stood up and walked towards one of the filing cabinets in the room. I bit my lip, thinking about the words he had said to me. Good for me but bad for him and the crew? Was he implying that me getting hurt was more important than me not getting anything but a few scrapes and bruises? I began to feel a little irritated. I guess Dr. Holt wasn’t lying about what she had said the other day. 

“I know, but can’t you give us a break from that kind of stuff?” I said, trying to reason with the man. “It’s for our own good— I understand that, but please… Give us a break. W-We’re kinda burnt out and we need some time to heal.”

“I’m afraid we cannot do that. We need data from all four of you on a daily basis. We can give you a break when there’s nothing we have to test or examine you on.”

I sighed, nodding reluctantly. It’s been six months since I got here. How much more information did they need from me? 

It took me a moment to realize I was sweating a little more than usual. I put a hand on my forehead, surprised to find that it was burning hot. Panic started to rush throughout my body. Was I getting sick? If so, what  _ made _ me sick?

Then I remembered Eloise’s medicine from earlier this morning.

I groaned, feeling my head pulse from my growing headache. I knew I shouldn’t have taken the medicine. My mouth and throat began to feel dry and I started shivering more. 

“Is everything alright?” He asked.

“I… I think… I think one of my hallucinations made me sick.”

“Is that so?”

I nodded my head, despite my shaking frame. I hugged my body, trying to make myself feel warm. It didn’t help though. The lab— or the room itself— was freezing. I could feel my knees getting weaker and my body ached from the sickness. 

“Let’s go to the infirmary. Nurse Kay can give you some medicine and let you rest.” Standing up, I walked with Dr. Leitner to the infirmary. Not too long after, I was sitting in the infirmary’s bed with an even hotter forehead and a slightly more painful headache. I shut my eyes since the bright light of the room was shining directly on me.

“Let me know if you need anything.” She said before leaving the room. I sighed, resting my head on the pillow and exhaling sharply. I reached over for the glass of water on the table nearby and gulped it down in one go. Looking around the room, I suddenly realized that Jean wasn’t in here. Wasn’t he injured? Shouldn’t he be in the infirmary? I mean, that’s if he was in another place somewhere here, but I didn’t know. We weren’t allowed to visit him for some weird reason. The same happened with Reiner when he was in his coma.

We aren’t allowed to see each other when we get sick either since the doctors didn’t want us to pass the sickness to each other or themselves which was understandable. Reiner gets sick easily too and I didn’t want that to get in his way since when he gets sick, it’s usually worse than most. Though, I felt really lonely when that happened. This wasn’t the first time Eloise gave me medicine and ended up making me ill. 

“How are you feeling Bertholdt?” A voice called not too far away. My eyes shot open and I was greeted by Eloise in her usual nursing outfit and innocent smile. I glared at her before shutting my eyes again due to the headache.

“Why did you do that…?” I weakly asked, gritting my teeth.

“What do you mean? It’s working just fine. Though, if you really do feel sick, I can give you another pill and maybe that’ll make you all better.”

“No, just don’t… Please… I already took medicine and I wouldn’t want to take another one. Plus, I don’t think you should take the same medicine twice unless you’re supposed to.”

“Look at you being a smartass doctor!” She giggled, walking closer to my bed. She placed her hand on my forehead and yanked it away shortly after touching it. “Ouch! What a burn… Fevers are quite annoying. That must suck to have it.”

“You gave it to me…” I sighed.

“Anyway, can I help you with anything?” 

I looked over at the table across from me and then looked at the sink. Water. I was so dehydrated… I remember Marco told me that if my headaches were frequent I should try drinking more water since that was a common cause for the nuisance. Though, I’m pretty sure it was a different cause.

“Water… Please? A-And something to eat… I don’t know what there is so anything works I guess.” Eloise nodded her head and walked over to the sink to fill my cup again. She opened one of the cupboards and took a granola bar out. She placed the glass on the table along with the granola bar.

“Here you go. Rest up now and keep yourself healthy~”

“Ah, thank you.”

Smiling in satisfaction, Eloise walked out of the room and vanished. I looked over at my glass of water and grabbed it, drinking once again. My hand reached for the granola bar, but I had found that I accidentally pushed it off and it dropped to the ground. Sighing heavily, I sat upright despite my aching head. I bent down and reached for the bar. While attempting to retrieve it, my hand dove under the bed. I was surprised to find a hardcover book here. After retrieving the bar, I reached under the bed again to pull out the book. It was dusty and a little old looking, but I brushed it off. I sneezed right after that.

Once I finished blowing my nose with the tissue, I opened the book to be met with neatly written cursive writing. In fact, cursive that looked recognizable. Like I had seen it somewhere before. I flipped through a couple pages before realizing that I was reading a diary. I didn’t know who’s it was though, but it had a lot of weird things in it. As I traced my finger along the middle of the book where the pages would be bonded together, I noticed that some pages were ripped out. Scanning through the book once again, I found a whole month’s worth of diary entries had disappeared. I tried to continue reading on, but my head would only hurt more when I tried focusing my attention on something.

I suddenly heard footsteps coming near. Worried, I slid the book under my pillow and tried to pretend that I had taken a nap. The person who walked into the room ended up being Dr. Leitner, much to my dismay. He shook my shoulder, trying to wake me up. I pretended to yawn, but I felt nervous while I did so. 

“Sorry to wake you up, Bertholdt, but I wanted to get some more information about your sickness. I know we’ve done this countless times, but I still have to get that data in. So could you explain to me how this started and why this might have happened?”

I explained to him how Eloise had noticed my bandages this morning while I was in the bathroom brushing my teeth. She offered me a pill that would supposedly heal me quicker. Although, I didn’t tell Dr. Leitner about me reasoning with her to help Jean recover quicker. I tried my best to keep my answers vague, as I found that if they were detailed, more harsh and frightful experiments would occur. I’ve already had enough of those anyway.

“I see. Well, thank you for answering. I hope your recovery is fast. We have lots to do still before you can see the surface.” Dr. Leitner leaves the room with a gentle smile on his face; Something I haven’t seen before. I sigh, relieved that I can actually take a nap now. That is until I hear some strange tapping on the door’s window. Turning my head, I find that it’s Marco and Reiner.

I can’t hear a thing they’re saying, but I’m guessing Marco snatched a sticky note and a pen from Dr. Garner. He sticks it onto the window, hoping I can read it. My eyes squint a little, but I smile once I’m able to clearly read the message. 

_ ‘Get better soon! We miss you, especially Reiner. :D’  _

_ \- Marco _

_ ‘Hope you get better Bertl. Me and Marco will try to snatch a dessert from the cafe for ya.’ _

_ \- Reiner _

“You guys…” I say, smiling when I look up at the window. I make a heart with my hands, hoping they can see it. The two smile back at me and make the same gesture. After, they waved goodbye and Marco mouths something like “See you later”.

Looking up at the clock, I realized it was now only lunchtime. I wanted to get up and join Reiner and Marco for lunch, but I couldn’t. Then again, I didn’t want to get up either. I sat in my bed, hoping that someone would come along and deliver a meal to me. 

Thankfully, someone did. It was Dr. Walton, one of the lab’s assistants. “Here you go. Eat up.” She says, placing the tray on the table.

“Thank you.” I say before licking my lips. The taste of warm soup and noodles filled my mouth with pleasure. Instantly, I could feel my headache become more mild and my fever started to dwindle. My body began to feel stronger. I knew it would probably only last for a little while, but I didn’t let that bother me.

_ “Do you think they know?” _

My head turned to the sound of Dr. Walton’s voice. The door was slightly open. She had forgotten to close it. No wonder why I could hear things from outside. 

“Do you think they know what?”

“About _ it _ .”

She was talking with another doctor whom I haven’t met or seen before anywhere in the facility. He had dirty-blonde hair and circle glasses. Perhaps he was new? Doctors did come and go here every once in a while. I kept my eyes shut but kept my ears open so they'd think I was sleeping. My eyes started to feel heavy. I can’t sleep, not now.

“Well just think about it. Stuff is starting to get tense between those four. On top of that, they’re starting to act really suspicious. We should consider installing cameras with built in microphones. I should go talk with Dr. Hunter and Dr. Anderson about it.” Dr. Walton spoke, sighing heavily.

“Well, it would be unwise to make ourselves suspicious too, wouldn’t you say? Because if we start doing that, they’ll become a little more secretive. We need to do this in a way where they will still act normal.” The other doctor said.

“I don’t know what we’re going to do if they find out about it, Peter. They have yet to keep those powers under control which is something they all can’t seem to do yet. It’s going to take a long time before they trust us.” I open my eyes slightly just to get a glimpse of what they were doing. Dr. Walton looks down at her clipboard and exhales sharply.

“001 and 002 are close. 003 and 004 are close. All four are close. Too close.”

“What’s wrong with that?”

“Close bonds get emotional and the desire to protect one another becomes stronger. Defiance might start to appear more frequently. And things might get more difficult if they find out. Two of them know each other, but they don't know it yet. I’m afraid that might trigger those memories if they know.”

Huh? Two of us know each other?

“Shit. I didn’t shut the door.”

My body shuddered as the sounds of footsteps came closer. I kept hoping that she’d think I was just sleeping. I could feel her eyes scanning my body, checking to see if I was awake. Thankfully, she walked away and shut the door.

She said something else to the other doctor, but I couldn’t understand what she said. The doors really were soundproof. I put an arm on top of my head and looked up at the ceiling. What was she talking about? One of us know each other? What memories? My head started to hurt again and I repositioned myself into a more comfortable position. I reached for the glass of water and took another drink.

I wanted to think about it more, I really did.

Ugh, I was just too tired and sick to continue on though.

I ended up falling asleep not too long after.

* * *

_ My head throbbed the moment I woke up. Where… Was I? I weakly sat up and looked around the room. It had silver metal walls with no windows. I looked down at the ground and saw that I had been sleeping on some kind of bedding. My body jumped a little to find someone else sleeping not too far away from me. Despite the uneasiness in my stomach and the nervousness in my throat, I crawled over to him and shook his right shoulder.  _

_ “H-Hello? A-Are you okay?”  _

_ A groan came shortly after. I yanked my hand away as he turned around with his back to the ground. My eyes looked down at his shirt. It had some kind of symbol with a three digit code of numbers on top. _

_ 001. _

_ Looking down at mine, I found that it was almost identically the same to his. The only difference was that I had a different set of numbers which were 002.  _

_ “Mmm… Agh… Huh? Where am I?” I jumped at the sound of his voice. His head turned towards me and he yawned, rubbing his eyes. “Who are you…? Have we met before or…?” _

_ “I-I don’t think so…” I spoke nervously, looking left and right for signs of other people. “Do you know what’s going on?” I asked, _

_ “No idea. I can’t remember a thing.” _

_ “Now that I think about it, I don’t either.” _

_ “Heh. That puts us in the same boat then, doesn’t it?” I smiled awkwardly and wrapped the white blanket around me. Despite wearing a nice, fluffy long sleeve shirt, I was still cold.  _

_ “Do you remember your name? I think I do…” _

_ “My name...?” _

_ What was my name again? _

_ I had been so caught up in the room that I didn’t think about myself nor my identity. I shut my eyes and rubbed the side of my head. A name… A name… I bit my lip out of frustration. Why didn’t I remember anything? _

_ Then it finally hit me. _

_ “Bertholdt… Bertholdt Hoover.” _

_ The other guy smiles at me gently which causes me to smile too. _

_ “Reiner Braun. Nice to meet you?” _

_ “Haha… Nice to meet you too?” _

_ He chuckles softly. In a way, it feels comforting to say the least. “I kinda feel like I’ve seen you before. Dunno though.” I tilt my head and look down at the ground. “It’s probably just a hunch.” _

_ “I suppose so… Still, I don’t know why I can’t remember anything.” _

_ “Someone’ll come by and explain… Hopefully.” _

_ Just as said, two people in lab coats came inside and looked down at us like we were something fascinating. The doctor with brown hair smiled uncharacteristically. It almost felt unnatural. She turned to her partner who was holding a clipboard. He had black hair and sharp rectangle glasses. He too smiled gently and bent down. _

_ “How are you two feeling?” He asked. _

_ “Fine.” _

_ “Alright.”  _

_ “Good. Can you come with us then?”  _

_ I felt sweat pool down my cheek. Turning my head, I nervously looked at Reiner. He looked at me with a confused face. He really didn’t have any sort of idea in his eye. Instead, he just shrugged and looked back at the two people. _

_ “Is everything alright?” _

_ “What’s going on?” I ask sheepishly, feeling my body burn up in nervousness.  _

_ "Come with us. We'll explain it all to you." _

_ I looked at Reiner who also looked back at me. He wrapped an arm around my shoulder and pulled me in a little closer. I felt my cheeks warm up as he did so. _

_ "I got your back. Nothing to be afraid of." He says, smiling gently. _

_ I look back at Reiner before nodding. _

_ "Good. Let's get you two to come over here." The female doctor says, waving her hand which asks us to come and follow her. Me and Reiner exchange glances before getting up. We walk side by side down the hallway and into one of the rooms. _

_ 'Bertholdt.' _

_ I turned around at the calling of my name. _

_ 'Bertholdt.' _

_ 'Bertholdt.' _

_ 'Bertholdt.' _

"Bertholdt? Bertholdt. Are you awake?"

"H-Huh?" My eyes slowly open and are greeted with the light of the infirmary. I turn my head to the left and see Nurse Kay's figure towering above me. 

"How are you feeling?" She asks.

I place a hand on my forehead then place it on my neck. The burning hot body warmth from earlier had disappeared. All that remained was a cool, but somewhat warm touch. My head still felt a little heavy, but not as heavy as before. My eyes still felt extremely tired and so did my body.

"I'm alright. Still a little sleepy and sore though." I say. Landing my eyes on the clock, I try to recall how long I slept for, but nothing appears. Nurse Kay gives me a glass of water before heading out the door.

"I'm just going to grab you dinner." She says, shutting the door.

I nod my head and rest it back down on the pillow. oddly enough, it felt a little stiff. I sat up and took the pillow off to see if something was under it. 

Then I remembered.

The book I found from earlier.

Making sure no one was going to barge in on me, I grabbed the book and flipped through a couple pages. I didn't get to read any of it earlier due to my irritating headache. 

I silently gasped when I flipped onto one of the pages.

I knew a few of the papers were ripped out for some unknown reason, but one of them magically made its way  _ back _ into the book. I noticed some tape binding it together as my finger traced over the paper. How did this happen…?

Then, my eyes fell on what was written.

_ "Something isn't right about the place father works at. It seems really dangerous and it's been stressing him out. _

_ I don't think they're being truthful with him." _

As I finished reading, my mind was left blank.

What was this supposed to mean?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you enjoyed this weeks chapter!
> 
> Aaaaannnnd I've reached the part of my story where I'm not sure what to write... Hmmm.
> 
> Well, I'll figure something out.
> 
> Thank you for keeping up with Experiment! And thank you for 900 hits! <3
> 
> Edit: AAAA SORRY I FORGOT TO PUT THE POV I WAS ABOUT TO EAT DINNER 
> 
> Fixed :D I hope it didn't cause too much confusion ;w;


	14. Heartache (Marco's POV)

My body began to feel heavy the second I stopped moving. I was panting excessively, not even taking a short moment to take a break and breathe. Everything kept coming at me non-stop. Cut after cut, slash after slash, the more exhausted my body became. With every small inconsistency that emerged from my fatigue, Dr. Garner wouldn’t resist scolding me for it.

_ “Faster.” _

_ “No breaks now.” _

_ “Get it done, Bodt.” _

_ “Use more force.” _

I grit my teeth, feeling slightly annoyed. I grunt loudly as my body gets slammed to the ground. Jamming my knife into the mutation’s throat, I slid it across, creating a large gap in its neck. Its limp body fell to the ground with a loud thud. I rubbed my left shoulder then wiped the sweat off my forehead. Finally, Dr. Garner turns off the chamber and the room returns back to normal. Heavily exhausted, I plopped my body down onto one of the chairs.

I get why Dr. Garner was overworking me so much. Even though she didn’t tell me, the answer was simple. She was doing this because I snuck out and stuck my nose somewhere where I shouldn’t have been. Now she’s pushing me to my limits. Or to the brink of collapse if I think about it.

Dr. Garner places a glass cup full of water on the table without any words. I pick it up and gulp it down in seconds. A moment later, I felt my body slowly regain its strength. Dr. Garner looks down at me than at her clipboard.

“I’ve added a drug to help you regain your energy faster. I hope you don't mind that." I pant, nodding shortly after.

“T-Thank you.”

“You have a five minute break. I’ll be right back.”

I sigh, looking down at the empty glass. I hear the door slam shut as Dr. Garner walks out. My mind suddenly thinks of Jean. God I was so worried about him. I’m starting to think my worry over him is part of the reason why my combat performance is so unfocused. The thought of him not waking up shook me to the core. I mean, this  _ has _ happened more than once. It’s happened with Reiner, Bertholdt, and myself already. 

My legs want to get up and look around the room, but my brain continuously fights the urge to do so. I don’t wanna get us all in trouble again and make things even harder. I look up at the clock. It was 12:26. Finally I could get a break from all the combat stuff…

I had to admit though. Sometimes the  _ chamber _ can be pretty fun.

My chain of thoughts break when Dr. Garner enters the room again. She heads straight to her desk before looking up at me.

“Go to lunch. Dr. Curtis will escort you there.”

* * *

_ “Dr. Garner has been giving me hell....” _

_ “O-Oh?” _

_ “Geez. Dr. Atkinson’s been acting weird towards me.” _

“Really?” I say, leaning closer to hear what Reiner has to say about Dr. Atkinson. I take another bite out of my sandwich and exchange a look with Bertholdt who only shrugs his shoulders. As I ate, I felt the top of my forehead get itchy. I groan, realizing the itchy part is where my stitches lie.  _ Of course  _ it’s that spot.

“Yeah. He’s suddenly acting… Nice to me?” Reiner sighs, placing his crossed arms onto the table. “Anyway, did you guys get any news on Jean? Or are they just not saying anything at all?”

“Nothing…”

“Nope.”

“Goddamn.” Reiner takes a sip from his glass of water. I look down at the table, my worry over Jean starting to take its effect on me once again. Bertholdt puts a hand on my shoulder, rubbing it gently.

“H-He’ll be okay.”

“I hope so…”

“A-Anyways, I’m glad you’re feeling better.” I say to Bertholdt, trying to change the subject. I wasn’t sure if my heart could handle more of the topic since I had already broken into tears multiple times at night. Rubbing my eyes, they still felt a little fuzzy from this morning’s crying.

“Yeah. Thanks for the little notes you guys left yesterday.” Bertholdt says with a soft smile. His eyes suddenly light up like a light bulb. “O-Oh! I have something I gotta show you guys.” 

“Aha, alright then.” Reiner gets up and walks over to the front of the cafeteria to drop off his empty lunch tray. I shove the last piece of my sandwich into my mouth and follow the others back into confinement. Once the doctors leave, Bertholdt taps me on the shoulder.

“Over here.” He speaks softly, leading me and Reiner to his personal drawer filled with a bunch of items he decided to keep. Bert pulls out a worn out and old looking book, holding it up. Me and reiner exchange confused looks. I tilt my head, not sure if I should be in awe. 

“It’s… A book?” Reiner asks.

“Not just any book.” 

Bertholdt flips through the pages as the dust causes me to sneeze. “Sorry… Haha.” He says, chuckling awkwardly. I just smile back at him before sneezing once again.

“It’s a diary. I’m not sure who’s diary it is, but I found it in the infirmary yesterday while I was sick.” Bertholdt points his finger to one of the pages, letting me and Reiner read it over. “See? Here’s one of their entries.”

I read over the words carefully. The handwriting was so neat and pretty. Soon enough, I was trying to figure out who wrote in the book. It was definitely old since it was kinda worn out, but not old enough to be torn to shreds. My eyes turned to Bertholdt who seemed to be thinking the same thoughts as me. He read lots of books about the outside world and I’m pretty sure he read enough books to know about families and their different social classes.

Or maybe he just knows it for some reason.

“So who do you think wrote it?” I ask. 

“I’m pretty sure it’s a girl. I can’t tell you how old she is though since I haven’t read everything yet. Um… She’s from a high-class family since her handwriting is in cursive and, well, lots of rich families prefer to teach their kids handwriting. The pages date back to the year 21XX, so… twenty-ish years ago?”

“Holy shit. I wonder how an old artifact like that wound up here though.” Reiner says with a shocked expression. I have to agree with him. How does a random girl’s diary end up in a  _ laboratory?  _

“Hold on. There’s something else odd about it.” Bertholdt says, biting his lip.

“Yeah? What?”

“The handwriting and the book itself seem weirdly familiar to me. It’s almost like I’ve seen it before somewhere.” Bertholdt flips through some more of the pages, some of which are ripped, wrinkled, or completely torn out of the diary. “I don’t see any names or signatures or anything like that. I’ll have to ask her.”

“Who?” I ask.

“Uh, she’s a hallucination of mine. She doesn’t show up when I’m around people. Well, all my hallucinations do that.” Bertholdt chuckles nervously. I kinda forgot that he had those. He rarely ever talks about them that’s why. I don’t think even Reiner knows much about them.

“A-Anyway, I just found it to be really… Strange?” Bertholdt catches our confusion instantly. He flips over to the torn pages, pointing them out. “First off, some pages in the diary are missing. To be honest, I don’t understand why people would rip out some of their diary entries. The whole point of writing in one is to narrate your life. But… That’s not exactly the strange part about it. See, I looked at the book for a minute while I was sick but since my head hurt so much, I decided to read the entries later. When I woke up from my nap, I checked under my pillow to make sure it still was still there. It was, but then I found a page that was originally ripped out and taped  _ back _ inside.” 

He flips over to the page and passes the book to me. There’s only a few short lines written on it. It dates back somewhere in December. I rub my chin, trying to make out what the girl was trying to imply. Obviously she was worried about her father, but exactly where did her father work and why aren’t his bosses being truthful with him?

My eyes scanned over the writing once again.

_ "Something isn't right about the place father works at. It seems really dangerous and it's been stressing him out. I don't think they're being truthful with him." _

“I wonder what’s going on with her…” I say, passing the book to Reiner. “When do you get to see the hallucination again?”

“Um… Well, she showed up once at the environment room. I’m not sure why, but she shows up randomly sometimes I guess. I may not see her again until I get thrown back into that dark room so it just depends.”

“Hey, I found something within the pages Bert. I’m not sure how you happened to miss it since it practically  _ fell _ out of it.” Reiner pulls us in to get a closer look at the thing he found. He holds up a coloured photograph. There’s a mother, father, and four kids. The tallest is a boy who looks like he’s in his teens. Probably the oldest. A young girl with brown hair stands right next to him. She looks to be about my age. The two youngest children lie at the bottom. The brother stands next to the other youngest, a girl, holding some kind of toy. 

Bertholdt picks up the picture, looking at it intensely. He gasps for a moment and his eyes suddenly light up. “T-That’s her! I know she has a diary, but why is it here…? A-And her diary looked more clean and brand new unlike this one!” He points to the young girl beside the younger brother.

“Wait, hold on a moment.” I add, drawing their attention to me. 

“Bertholdt, you said this is your  _ hallucination’s _ diary, right?” 

“Y-Yeah why?”   
“Wouldn’t that mean your hallucinations  _ aren’t _ hallucinations?”

“H-Huh? W-What do you mean—?”

“ _ Think _ about it!” I exclaim. “She must be real if her diary is sitting right in the palm of your hands right now. I don’t know how she’s in your head or why she’s connected to your powers but that must mean she’s a real person right?”

“W-Well, u-um… I have no idea…! She’s just… there honestly.” Bertholdt sighs, looking down at the ground. He scratches the back of his neck nervously. I rub my chin, collecting my thoughts and trying to further decode this whole hallucination thing. 

“Well she can’t be a ghost, right?” Reiner chimes in with his arms folded. “Ghosts don’t exist or whatever. Unless Bertholdt can summon dead people or something.”

“How do we know if she’s dead? Is she dead?” I ask.

“I-I don’t know!” Bertholdt stammers.    
  


He takes a moment to recollect himself, taking in a deep breath. “H-How about I ask her the next time I see her? Does that help?” 

Reiner and I exchange looks, but we eventually nod in agreement. “Yeah. Go ahead. Just try not to get yourself hurt, okay?” Bertholdt shakes slightly, but nods anyway. Reiner pulls him into a hug, knowing that he’s still pretty scared about it on the inside. After they break apart, I hug him as well.

Ah. I miss being hugged for some reason. 

Melancholy starts to overwhelm my body.

Why do I feel sad all of a sudden?

“Marco? Hey, are you alright?” I feel my knees grow weak as tears suddenly build up in my eyes. Reiner kneels down next to me with Bertholdt as the two try to figure out what’s going with me. I give in and break into a loud and messy sob. 

“I-I… I don’t know h-honestly. I just…”

“H-Hey! C-Calm down.”

I sniffle, wiping some of my tears off my cheeks. Looking up at Reiner and Bertholdt, the worry on their faces makes me feel even more sad. I hug my knees, finally starting to feel a little bit calmer. My throat has a huge lump in it from the crying and my eyes feel tired and fuzzy. I try to place the exact reason on why I felt upset, but tears replaced what should have been thoughts. Taking a deep breath, I look up at my friends with a melancholic smile. 

“I think… I’m just afraid of losing you guys, you know?” I chuckle at what I wanted to say next. “I know it might not even be a-accurate but… I don’t think I had many friends in my dreams. I think I was considered that weird kid or whatever. Look. I just really don’t wanna lose you guys. The fact that Jean’s already in a critical state scares me. Even though these powers can somewhat guarantee our survival, I dread the day where that proves to be false. You guys just mean s-so much to me…” 

Reiner is the first to cry, then Bertholdt. We all hug like the many times in this cold, metal room. I can’t remember how many times we’ve done this when one of us came back alive. It’s kind of funny to me.

The doctors say the people above us are the people that are going to kill us.

But they push us to the limits without a second thought of our wellbeing or care.

Reiner’s idea about leaving the lab isn’t so bad now, right? We just… Need an opportunity that’s all! Even if things are going to be tougher out there, I’d rather live freely than being caged and I’m sure that’s what Reiner and bertholdt want as well. We wouldn’t have to worry about who doesn’t come back from testing anymore! We don’t need to worry about being watched or monitored. 

“So Reiner, about that escaping the lab thing?”

* * *

We’ve been discussing the plan since I cleared up my sudden emotional breakdown. I smile, throwing a handful of mini marshmallows into my mouth. I probably shouldn’t be eating so many snacks or else there wouldn’t be any room left for dinner. It would come fairly soon.

“Is there a map of this place?” Reiner asks.

“There may be one.” Bertholdt says, drawing on a piece of paper. “I’m not sure where we could get one, though. Would we even need one? We just gotta find the exit and that’s it. Plus it would be kinda risky to make one anyway. Hey Marco, didn’t you accidentally, or, well, intentionally, decide to go into Sector P? The Prohibited Sector?”

“Yeah. Since I stumbled in there, getting inside will probably be harder. Security most likely would have increased there.” I look out the window which leads to the lab’s many hallways. The wall looks similar to the Testing Sector, except it has a large E instead of a T. 

“I-I’m pretty sure there are four sectors.” Bertholdt draws four squares onto the paper, each stacked on top of each other to look like a rectangle. “There’s Sector E, the Experiment Sector where we reside. After that would be Sector S, the Staff Sector. Then there’s Sector T, the Testing Sector. Sector P, the Prohibited Sector. I think that’s where we need to go to get out of here. A-Aren’t we underground?”

“I think so.” I say. “Why would we have to go to Sector P then?”

“How else would we get out then…?”

“Maybe there’s a staircase or something elsewhere, but we would have most likely seen it by now. They want to keep us in here, don’t they? That’s why whatever will take us up to the surface is in Sector P. Get it?”

After hearing Reiner and Bertholdt’s explanation, it makes sense to me. “Great. We just need some kind of opportunity to get out of here then. While we wait for that, take advantage of the Advanced Hologram Technology thing to enhance our powers. They’re training us to fight the mutations which will help us anyway!”

“Do you think they would let us out eventually?” Reiner asks. “I mean, I kind of doubt that they’d stay true to their promise, but you never know.”

“Reiner, we’ve discovered almost everything about our powers and it’s been… six months since we’ve been here?” Bertholdt argues. “I only wonder why they’re only now giving us combat training, but the other experiments and such are just things that put us in danger, and I’ve been in that room for how many months straight now?”

“Sorry. I didn’t mean to sound like I opposed the idea or anything. I was just curious.” Reiner says averting his eyes away from Bertholdt. 

“A-Ah I didn’t mean to sound rude either I—!”

“You guys are so adorable.” I tease, placing my chin under my hand. I sigh shortly after. “I miss Jean.”

“We know man.” Reiner says, putting an arm over my shoulder. “He’ll be alright. I know he will. I can feel it.”

My frown turns into a smile at Reiner’s big brother-like comfort. Suddenly, the door slides open again. My head turns to the clock. It was only 4:45. Dinner isn’t until later. What did the doctors want from us? Turns out, it wasn’t just Dr. Hunter entering the room.

My heart dropped. My world felt like it froze within seconds.

Nothing seemed to hurt or matter after that moment. 

I rushed to the front without a second thought to hug him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry if this week's chapter looks half-assed, which it was, lmao. 
> 
> Unfortunately this was one of the chapters that suffered my writer's block.
> 
> But hey, I hope it's not too bad and at least decent.
> 
> By the way, you can ask me questions about the story on my [Tumblr.](https://arya-ender.tumblr.com/ask) I need to post some guidelines for my blog soon but I've been busy aaaaa.
> 
> This is a long note, lol. 
> 
> Thank you for keeping up with Experiment!


	15. Reunion (Jean's POV)

_ “Aw, come on Jean! Lighten up a bit!” _ _   
_ _ “Yeah! It’s just a quick glimpse of the place.” _

_ “Guys, if he doesn’t wanna go he doesn’t have to.” _

_ “Awe come on!” _

_ “It’s getting late we should just—” _

_ “No. It’s okay. _

**_I’ll go._ ** _ ” _

* * *

My head throbs with pain as my eyes slowly open. Cold air brushes on top of me, feeling almost familiar. Like it’s happened before. I can’t seem to recall what’s happened in the past few days. Where am I?

The sudden light in the room makes my eyes shut tightly. Footsteps follow shortly after which makes my body jump with fear. I don’t know what the hell is happening. Did something wipe my memory? Or am I just overreacting? Or—?

“You’re awake.” A calm voice says. My head whips to the side and my face instantly recognizes her. Names are still separated into their individual letters which doesn’t help me much. I stare at her in shock, confusion, and worry. She doesn’t do anything but look at the monitor next to my bed with all my vital signs. 

“Oh my. Are you alright? Do you need water? O-Oh! I forgot to say that I have some questions to ask you.” A woman with glossy brown hair bends down to look at me. I sit up, completely paralyzed. Looking down at my left arm, I find that it’s in a cast. One of my legs don’t feel any better either. It’s wrapped in some sort of bandage. Before I could even process her question, a glass cup was placed onto the table beside me. One thing I knew for sure though was that I was thirsty. I gulped down the glass of water in an instant.

“How are you feeling?” The woman asks.

“O-Okay. What’s happening?”

“Ah, what do you remember?”

I pause for a moment. My name is Jean Kirschtein, I’m fifteen years old, my birthday is April 7th, I woke up in a strange place where I met strange people. The last thing I remember is…

Shit. I don’t remember.

“Just… My identity. I don’t recall much after that.” I say, my hand on my throbbing forehead. The woman smiled sympathetically, placing a hand on my shoulder and rubbing it gently. The feeling felt… Familiar.

_ ‘You’ll be alright, Jean. Mom is here.’ _

Whose voice was that?

I couldn’t understand why that played then and there. Was it supposed to be a memory? Regardless of what it was, I didn’t understand it very well other than it having something to do with my mother. Was that the reason why the woman rubbing my shoulder felt so familiar?

Nothing is making any sense anymore.   
  


“Nurse Kay. Dr. Holt. The subjects keep pestering me about #4’s current state. Can we maybe hurry up and get him in there so they can at least calm down?” The two women turn their heads to the voice. A man with glasses and a clipboard. The number four rings in my ears and makes me look down at my shirt. A three digit code with a black coloured font sits on the left side of my chest.

_ 004. _

_ ‘That’s right. You’re 004.’  _ I thought.

“Fine. His friends can explain everything to him then. Maybe his memory will come back after that.” The woman has me get out of the bed and sit up. As I struggled to stand up straight, I felt my right leg crumble beneath me. The brown-haired woman quickly rushed over to support me. She handed me this metal crutch that I could use to balance myself. Helping me out the door, we walked down the empty, echoey metal hallway.

As we make our way to the room, I take a moment to look around the place. I wanted to see how much more I could remember. The hallways seemed familiar, definitely. So did the atmosphere. Yeah, I’ve been here before, I know it. Still, I wonder what I  _ am _ forgetting, if it was anything important, and why it happened.

Well, I guess the bandages on me are important. 

We headed towards a medium sized room with thick glass walls. When I looked inside, I could see three people wearing the same clothing I was wearing. The man from earlier opened the door and all three looked at me, almost staring even. My eyes fell onto the boy with stitches biding the two halves of his face. He had dark chocolate eyes, peach skin, neat black hair, and many freckles. The sight of the stitches almost made me jump, but my mouth was left open.

Something about him made me… 

_ “Jean?” _

My heart began to thump as I tried to remember his name.

_ “Marco…?” _

“Jean… Jean!” Marco came running to me, tackling me to the ground with wide open arms. The two other guys exchanged glances before catching up. I grunted loudly as my body hit the ground. Rubbing my head, I looked down at my chest to find him sobbing into my shirt. I felt my cheeks flush red. My thoughts take a moment to remember the three guys in this room. Reiner, the big brother-like guy, Bertholdt, shy but strong and intelligent, and Marco, the kind hearted freak who was the first person I made friends with here.

I felt tears swell up in my eyes.

“Jean! Holy shit man. We were so worried. We’re so glad you’re alive.” Reiner says, kneeling down next to me. I can’t help but cry at his statement. Marco allows me to get up, sniffling as he does so. Afterwards, he hugs me closely, burying his face into my shoulder. My head turns to Reiner, then Bertholdt, then back down at marco.

“I-It’s such a relief… H-Honestly. Marco was so… Worried.” Bertholdt stutters.

“I-I could tell.” Looking down at Marco’s wet and flushed face, the tears in my eyes continue to stream down my cheeks. The freckled idiot looks up to face me. I stare deeply into his eyes that constantly flicker from a bright yellow to an intense pink. He smiles tearfully at me.

_ “I missed you so, so much.” _

My face feels hot, gentle tears streaming down my cheeks. For a moment, I let time stop just to get another look at everyone, especially Marco. The lump in my throat largens with every sniffle and tear that he creates. My brain started to feel fuzzy. I watched as my hand traced over Marco’s left cheek gently, before ultimately cupping it in my hand. The feeling is… Soft. And gentle. 

Just like he is.

Without further hesitation, I break into a sob, hugging Marco tightly. I feel Reiner and Bertholdt’s arms wrap around me and Marco. A few minutes later, we’re a bunch of sobbing kids on the ground. I couldn’t care less about my head or my arm or any other injuries I happened to have. The only thing that mattered at that moment were my friends. 

I mean, they’re all I have left, right?

“I… I m-missed you guys… A-A lot.” I say through sniffles.

“S-So did we… Ah… Jean…!”

Marco looks up at me and despite the sorrow-filled cloud covering his face, his eyes shimmer a soft shade of pink. 

“I-I honestly t-thought you wouldn’t come back… I mean, h-how do you even m-manage to survive that k-kind of s-stuff?” He chokes on another sob, looking down.

“B-But I was wrong… You did make it back!” He chuckles, burying his face into my shoulder. “You came b-back…”

“Yeah man.” Reiner says, taking in a deep breath as he tries to pull himself together. “We’re so glad to have you back.”

Bertholdt gives me nothing but a soft, gentle smile.

After a solid five minutes of crying into each other’s arms, we break apart and start laughing for some unknown reason. Maybe to lighten the mood? It was much needed anyway. I went to wipe my face with my sleeve, but found that Marco was holding onto it tightly. I heard Reiner snicker through his sniffles and rolled my eyes.

“Oh shut up. I bet Bertholdt did the same to you.” I retorted. 

“Haha. Well, how are you feeling?” Reiner asks, clearing his throat.

“I feel okay I guess. My head still hurts a bit. My arm and leg are okay too.” I pause for a moment, thinking about my injuries. “Hold on a second, why am I injured again?”

Marco suddenly looks worried. “What do you mean?”

“I can’t remember what happened. Hell I can’t even remember some of the people here.”

“Let’s get you somewhere comfortable. Me and Bertl will go grab you some juice and a snack.” Reiner says, helping me up. I plop myself down onto the bed as Bertholdt calls my name not too far away.

“What flavour juice would you like? We have grape, apple, orange, and berry.”

“Grape please.

“Here you go.” I smile gently, thanking him before poking the straw into my juice box. Marco sits down next to me and so does Reiner and Bertholdt.

“What do you remember?” Bertholdt asks.

“My name, birthday, age— the basic stuff. I remember your names, I remember the lab and my powers… I just can’t recall my injuries, how I got here, the doctors’ names, and a bunch of other stuff I still need to think about.” 

“It’s alright man. Take it easy. We'll break it down for you.” Reiner says, putting a hand on my shoulder. I sigh heavily, hoping to mentally prepare myself for the information I would soon receive.

As I listened to my friends talk, the memories started to flood back and piece themselves together. Everything started to make sense again. Looking down at my arm and leg, my teeth clench together. Apparently I was out for three days straight and I only woke up now. I suddenly feel a bit stressed, but that goes away when I realize Marco has been holding onto my hand for the last few minutes. Blushing, I smile gently at him, hoping Reiner or Bertholdt doesn’t notice.

“So there. On top of that, we’ve been discussing a way to get out of here.” Reiner says, folding his arms. My eyes light up. Escaping this place? When did that idea get inside his head?

“Hold up.” I say, clutching my left arm. “Why are we escaping?”

“Isn’t it obvious? So these crazy lunatics don’t accidentally kill us.”

“Won’t they let us out though?”

Reiner sighs, standing up and crossing his arms. He looks down at me, making me feel some kind of deja-vu. “Look, I believed that once. But after staying here with Bertholdt for six months after the promise of getting released  _ after _ all our powers were discovered and under control, I’m starting to get skeptical. Sure, the cause might be you and Marco suddenly showing up, but me and Bert figured everything out within three months. Isn’t that kinda suspicious to you?”

I scratch the back of my neck awkwardly. Reiner puts his hands on his hips, sighing heavily. “I just don’t want you guys to get hurt anymore. I know I can handle it because I’m almost guaranteed to survive anything thrown at me. But you guys? Not much of a chance in all honesty. I-I’m not saying you guys can’t handle yourself. You just never know when your powers will give up.”

“Yeah, I get it.” I huff, hugging my knees tightly. My eyes catch sight of a dusty old book placed beside Bertholdt. I crawl over to it, hoping to get a closer look. Weirdly enough, it was the same book I found in the library a few days ago. 

“Hey, how’d you get this?” I ask.

“Um, I found it in the infirmary while I was sick yesterday.” Bertholdt says quietly. “So far we think it might be my hallucination’s diary, but I have to ask her first the next time I see her.”

“You can’t ask her right now?” I ask, tilting my head.

“It’s complicated.” Reiner sighs. “Even I don ‘t know everything about his hallucinations to the full extent.”

“It’s only because I don’t want you to worry too much about it.” Bertholdt says with a nervous expression. “And you’re right about it being complicated. Honestly it might be more than complicated now that this diary is here for some odd reason…”

I open up the dusty book, sneezing as some of the dust enters my nose. I catch Marco laughing at me and give him a glare. Rolling my eyes, I start flipping through the pages. My brain can’t seem to make out what any of the words say. Is this even English?

“I can’t understand shit.” I spoke, frustrated.

“I-It’s all in cursive.” Bertholdt says, smiling awkwardly.

“Cursive?”

“It’s a form of fancy writing many rich families taught their children. I think regular families could still have their kids learn it, but it was more prominent for the high class. Probably to look professional or something like that.” Bertholdt looks at us with an awkward look before averting his gaze. “S-Sorry. I didn’t mean to give a full on lesson.”

“Haha, it’s alright Bertholdt.” Marco says reassuringly. He turns his eyes to me and puts a hand on my injured shoulder. “So, does everything sound alright to you now? Anything else you want us to explain to you? Oh, and about the plan on escaping, we’re just waiting for an opportunity at this point. Speaking of which, have you seen a map in any of the rooms yet?”

“I think I saw one in the testing room Dr. Holt usually takes me, but I’d have to go back and check again whenever that would be.” Marco nods his head, gets up, and walks over to one of the cabinets in the room. He throws me something wrapped in plastic before yelling at me from across the room.

“What juice flavour do you want?”

“Uh… Berry?”

A second juice box is flung towards me and I manage to catch it. I removed the plastic off the circular object which turned out to be a chocolate chip cookie. Without any further thoughts, I devoured the sweet within a minute. I didn’t realize how fucking hungry I was. In a matter of seconds, I already asked Marco for a third cookie. Reiner chuckled in the corner, leaning against the wall with his arms crossed.

“Jeez dinner is gonna come up soon. You can stuff your face there.”

“I was asleep for three days man. I need to eat  _ something _ .”

“Something other than just cookies.” The guy walks over to me and gently pats me on the back. “Can’t have you throwing up cause your stomach hasn’t eaten properly in a while.”

“How do you know that?”

“Marco.”

My head turns around to look at him in a flash. The idiot just chuckles with the usual happy smile on his face. “Don’t ask how I know. I just… Know for some reason.” 

Chuckling, I stood up and walked over to the bed area where Bertholdt was sitting since it was much more comfortable than the floor. Suddenly, my short dream from earlier pops up in my thoughts. Maybe because Bertholdt’s similar dreams reminded me? Whatever it was, it was really confusing.

“Hey Bertholdt,” I say, getting the taller guy’s attention. “About your dreams, have you gotten any new ones recently? Actually, has anyone else gotten one recently? It’s like all of us are having the same mental crisis.”

“Um… Why do you ask?”   
“I just had one a while back when I woke up.”

“Oh? What was it about?”

“There were kids my age standing in front of me. They wanted me to come along with them somewhere and I must have said I wasn’t sure since they were all arguing for a couple seconds. Ultimately, I said I’d go with them and that’s the end of it. Weirdly enough though, I couldn’t see their faces. It was like… Covered in some kind of shadow. Their voices seemed somewhat familiar. Can’t remember their names either. I know for sure it wasn’t any of you guys.”

Bertholdt looks away from me and rests his head on his knees, staring at the metal wall. “What do you think these dreams and stuff are trying to tell us? Do you… Think they’re real?” I say, looking down at the clear opening in my hand.

“I don’t know, but it feels real for some reason.” He sighs, looking at Reiner and Marco. “Maybe my hallucinations can help figure that out.”

“How exactly?”

“It’s complicated.”

I smile at Bertholdt as he exchanges one in return. Reiner’s shadow towers above us, folding his arms in the process. “So, what are you guys talking about?”

“Just dreams.” Bertholdt chuckles, lying down on the pillow. “Why haven’t they called us for dinner yet? I’m hungry…”

“That is kinda odd.” Marco confesses. “They’re never late to take us wherever we need to go.” 

“I guess we should just wait for them then.” I huff, looking down at my leg. That was going to take some time to heal. I wonder what experiments Dr. Holt is going to get me to do since I’m not exactly in good shape.

“Guys, I think everyone is advancing to the combat stage. Take advantage of the combat training they’re teaching us.” Marco whispers, giving us all a confident smile. “We can get out of here! I know we can!”

Despite my anxiety, I nod and smile back at him.

“So, are we going to have dinner or not?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, I'm back!
> 
> So over the two weeks I noticed that the amount of hits, kudos, and bookmarks went up like HOLY you guys?! Seriously?! You're all so sweet ;w; I can't believe I came back to that! 
> 
> This chapter was one of those that suffered my writer's block, but I managed to revise whatever I could to make it elevate Jean and Marco's relationship. (Next time they show up I'll elevate it even more >:D)
> 
> Thank you, thank you so much for keeping up with Experiment!
> 
> (And yes I'll get you all that art piece I wanted to gift you guy's :>)


	16. Fall Back To When? (Reiner's POV)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't normally do notes at the beginning of my chapters... But...
> 
> Y'all have been so sweet lately, so I've given you a ReiBert-centric chapter :D
> 
> I haven't gotten into my drawing mood for a while, so this is the least I could give you guys :>
> 
> Happy reading!

Dinner is quiet for the most part. It doesn’t seem like the guys feel like talking much, and I could see why. We’re all kinda burnt out at the moment. I look down at the plates covering my arms and the back of my hand, running my finger down it’s smooth and stone-like surface. For a moment, I was daydreaming. Someone else’s hand was holding onto mine. 

My back immediately straightened as I turned from side to side, seeing if someone was holding it. Nobody was. Bertholdt and the others looked at me concerningly. “Is everything alright?” Bert asked, his emerald green eyes glistening in the light.

“Yeah. I’m fine. I was just dreaming for a second there.” I continue to eat my cup of noodles, despite the weird flashback-like scenario. “Anyway, the rest of the week is over now, right? That means we can actually stretch our legs and go somewhere,” I leaned in, whispering softly to the others.

“ _ And _ we can  _ explore _ to some extent.” I winked.

My eye notices Bertholdt blushing from the comment. Marco’s smile becomes smug, and I can see his intentions in his eyes. Seriously. They’re glowing yellow. “Hey Bertholdt, what’s with the red face?” He teases, trying to provoke him into blushing even more. I roll my eyes, hoping that my cheeks don’t start to burn up. Marco is really good at reading others’ emotions, so when he started seeing signs of me liking Bertholdt, it became his mission to try and get us together. 

“W-What do you mean? I’m not blushing!” Bertholdt pouts.

“Let’s face the facts, Bert. You like Reiner.”

“I do not!”

“You sure about that?”

I chuckle, patting Bertl gently on the back. “It’s okay. He’s just teasing you like he always does. And, well, lighting up the mood is much needed since the past week has been disastrous.” Bertholdt sighs, regaining his composure.

“I guess you are right.”   
“Well, didn’t you guys want to go to the library today?”

Marco and Bertholdt’s eyes light up in a flash. Although, Marco’s is more intense than Bert’s. The two nod their heads. I start to wonder if one day Marco is going to explode from such a high build up in emotions.

“So… Do you think there’s anything like the book we found not too long ago in the library? The one Bertholdt has?” Jean says, trying to keep talk about the conversation vague. “Like, what if there’s another book like that somewhere in there?”

“That could be a possibility.” Marco says, rubbing his chin. He throws another chip into his mouth before talking again. “Where did you find the book last time Jean?”

“On a bookshelf, duh.”   
“Which one, silly?”

“I’ll show you when we get there, dumbass.”

“Flirting.” Bertholdt blurts out, rolling his eyes. 

  
“I’m not flirting with him!” Jean yells, glaring at Bertholdt with a red face. When he turns his head to mine, I wink at him before making a suggestable gesture.

“You really did not—”

“Yes I did.”

“Wow, look at you two shipping me and Marco together.” Jean says in an annoyed tone. 

“You do that to me and Reiner though.” Bertholdt chuckles, awkwardly scratching the back of his neck. “We sure have all gotten close, and it’s only been a week. Though, I can’t really argue with that. All of us got along fine once we got here.”   
  


“Mhm!” Marco responds with a wide grin on his face. I smile back at them all, finishing the last remains of my noodles. It was nice to have Jean back with us and seeing Marco all happy and content. I look up at Bertholdt, admiring his tall and slender figure. He looks back at me with a small blush on his face, but I can feel my cheeks start to burn up a bit, even more than his probably. The smile on my face and his doesn’t seem to be going away any time soon.

And the voice in my head is telling me to kiss him.

_ “Hey!”  _

Alarmed, we both turn our heads to find Jean and Marco looking at us.

“Are you guys just gonna stare at each other?”   
“I— We weren’t—!”

“You don’t have all day y’know… Kiss already!”

“Hey, hey, hold up a second Marco—”

“In all serious, are you guys done? We’re going to head to the library now. Dr. Hunter is waiting for you two.” Me and Bertholdt awkwardly exchanges glances before getting up and throwing away our empty noodle cups and chip bags. Marco and Jean wait for us both at the cafeteria’s entrance. 

Once we got there, we expected Jean to show us where he found the book, but since his memory is still somewhat hazy, it took us a little bit. He finally remembered the spot when he saw the bookshelf. “So, should we try looking for other books while we're here?”

“Yeah.” Marco says with a determined look on his face.

“I think it would be wise to pick up some books about the outside world, mutations, and other important stuff we should know when  _ it _ happens.” Bertholdt suggests. The three of us exchange looks, nodding in agreement.

“Then it’s settled.” I say. “I’m assuming Jean and Marco want to work together, right?”

“You bet!”

“Yep.”

“And that lands me with Bertholdt.” I sigh, looking at Bertholdt with a warm and gentle smile. “Well, let’s get looking there’s gotta be some other books out there for us to look at.

“Right.” Bertholdt says, diving into the bookshelves. I watch as his fingers run across the books’ collars, moving swiftly along the shelf. Crouching down, I examine the lower part of the bookshelf, taking out the books one by one to make sure the check is thorough. Bertholdt looks down at me and chuckles. “That’s going to take a while, you know.”

“I am aware.” I say, standing up and putting hands on my hips. “I don’t think anything good is here, by the way. Do you wanna move closer to the back? Last time I checked it out, there was a lot of good stuff.” Bertholdt thinks for a moment before nodding his head.

“Sure, why not? It’s not like the back is a restricted area, right?”

Well, I sure hope it’s not.

As we walk to the back of the library, my eye catches Marco and Jean who are desperately trying to reach the top of a bookshelf. Marco is sitting on top of Jean’s shoulders, maneuvering him around like a horse, which makes it funnier since I’ve been calling him a horse. I stop Bert for a moment, pulling him back to watch the two.

“A little to the left.”

“Okay…”   
“Wait, wait too much!”

“Marco we’ve been doing this for a long damn while already!”   
  


“Well I’m sorry Jean but I can’t reach the book!” Marco says with a pout on his face. I start laughing as I walk towards them, Bert following behind me.

“You guys okay?” I ask.

“Marco can’t reach that.” Jean replies.

“Here. I’ll get it.” Bertholdt chuckles softly, grabbing a nearby stool and getting on it. His long arms reach to the very back of the bookshelf where it meets the wall, snatching the book. Jean stares in awe for a few seconds before sighing heavily in frustration.

“Should’ve just asked Bertholdt…” He mutters, nudging Marco’s ribcage.

Bertholdt smiles gently, handing the book to the pair. “Come on Reiner. We still gotta check out the back.” I nod my head, waving goodbye to Marco and Jean. “Let us know what you find!” Bert says, catching up to me.

“Ooh have fun!” Marco says in a teasing tone.

“Mhm. Don’t make too much of a mess.” Jean snickers.

It takes me a few seconds to realize the joke is a sexual one.

“Yeah, right.” I huff, rolling my eyes. Bertholdt looks at me with a red face, but we end up smiling at each other before awkwardly looking away. I can’t help but get a second glance at him. His ruffled, dark hair, emerald eyes, his slender and poised composure, just everything about him was so mesmerizing. He just attracted me towards him instantly.

_ “Reiner? Are you alright?” _

The sound of Bertholdt’s voice snaps me awake. I stare at his face blankly, realizing I’d been staring at him for the past minute as well. Clearing my throat, I avert my eyes and grit my teeth. “Yeah I’m alright. I was just… Thinking about something.” Bertholdt tilts his head, but seems to brush off my vague answer. We reach the back of the library and start digging into the books.

“Hey Reiner,” Bertholdt says softly. “Um… I don’t know how to start in all honesty… But. U-Um, there’s something I wanted to tell you. I was thinking it’d be better to tell you now before anything else happens, y’know?”

I nod my head, leaning in closer. I feel my heart beat faster and faster, taking in a quiet puff of air to try and calm myself down. “Go on. Take your time. You don’t need to rush.”

Bert sighs, sitting down and leaning his body against the wall. I crouch down in front of him, looking into his eyes. “Reiner… I feel… Connected to you in some sort of way. Almost as if we’re associated with each other.” He looks down at his knees, taking in a deep breath.

“Oh?” I say, a little surprised.

“Yeah.” He responds.

I look down, taking a moment to think this through. I can’t risk doing anything stupid. Especially not now. Instead, I ask him a question.

“Bertholdt, how do you feel about me?”

He pauses, a tint of red running across his face at the sudden question. 

“W-Why do you ask?”

“Because I want to tell you something too.”

“Huh?” He stammers. At this point, I’ve leaned in slightly closer to his face, but not too close to the point where a little more movement would make our lips touch. Closing my eyes and taking in a deep breath, I feel my body get warmer and warmer. My heart pounds faster and faster, making the neverending energy running through my body accelerate.

“Bertholdt… If I’m going to be honest, you’re what’s always on my mind. Seeing you smile makes my heart melt all the time. Hell, just everything about you makes me melt. Your personality, the funny sleeping positions you have, your eyes, just everything that makes you, you. We were stuck here together from the very start, and you were the one who’s always had my back. I don’t know why, I don’t know how. But I’m 100% sure the feeling I’m feeling is correct, and that feeling is that I love you. You’re everything to me, and I don’t ever want to lose you.”

He looks at me, a little surprised. A moment passes, and I notice that his eye glows red. To add on, he starts tearing up. I start to slightly panic, hoping I didn’t make him  _ too _ emotional. “Oh shit I’m sorry I didn’t mean to make you cry—”

“N-No i-it’s fine.” Bertholdt says with a shaky and cracked voice. “I-I wanted to tell you I felt the same. T-That’s what I wanted to tell you before anything happens. B-But it looks like you confessed f-first.” He chuckles.

“You’re so adorable.” I say, cupping his cheek and wiping the tears away from his face. His eyes shimmer in the light of the library, just enough to make them look like stars. My eyes shut, letting my own tears flow out. Bertholdt suddenly pulls me into a hug, burying his wet face into my chest. Although I’m surprised, I laugh softly, hugging him back tightly. “So, about the connection you were talking about. How does that apply to us?”

“Well, I-I thought about it for a bit. I guess I was thinking that my feelings for you were… More than friends. A… Closer connection.” We break apart and I move behind Bert so he can rest in my arms. I rest my cheek on his head, feeling his fluffy dark hair. I wanted this to just… Last forever. I know that once we get out of here we can hold each other with safety any time we want.

Yeah. That’s a nice thought.

Our eyes suddenly shoot up when we hear a familiar chuckle. I peer over one of the bookshelves, finding a familiar freckled superhuman and horse looking right at us. 

Oh shit. Marco and Jean.

“I fucking knew it!” Marco exclaims, pumping his fist in the air. He takes Jean by the shoulders, shaking him furiously. 

“Oh my God they’re finally together!” He shouts excitedly.

“I— Know—! You— Can— Stop— Now—!” Jean says in between pauses.

I let out a light chuckle, standing up. My eyes meet with Bertholdt for a moment before looking back at an ecstatic Marco still shaking Jean non-stop to the point where he looks so damn dizzy. “You might wanna stop shaking him, Marco.” I say, crossing my arms. He finally lets go of the poor guy, giving us his usual innocent smile.

“So, how long were you two watching?”

“The second you two got to the back.”

“Wow, stalkers.” I joke, turning my head to Bertholdt with a gentle smile. I let out sighing knowing there’s no point in hiding our feelings anymore since these two dumbasses already witnessed it. Extending my hand, I expect Bertholdt to take it. Instead, he wraps his arms around my arm. Well, that works too I guess.

“By the way, is anyone going to comment on the fact that Marco sweared?” I say, giving the guy a teasing glare. Marco puts a hand to his mouth, telling me to shush.

“We don’t talk about that!” He says, an embarrassed smile forming on his face.

“You’ve never sworn?” Jean comments, surprise on his face.

“Well, he’s kind of the golden boy here. Haha.” I chuckle. I look up at Bertholdt, smirking at him. “Bertholdt’s sworn only… Once? I can’t actually recall, but when he swears he just says shit.”

Bertholdt rolls his eyes, clinging onto my arm despite how large he is. I can feel the weight of his body on my right shoulder. Were he heavier than me, he’d probably crush my frame. Marco and Jean look back at us, grinning alongside us.

“Well, congratulations.” 

“Mhm! We’re happy for you two.”

“Thank you guys…” Bertholdt says, his smile beaming brightly. I’ve never seen him so happy before. The sight causes me to stare, and I don’t stop smiling. Not even for a moment. “So, besides us, did you find any useful books lying around?”

“Uh… No, actually. Which is odd.” Marco replies, scratching the back of his head nervously. “I noticed that some of the books I used to see aren’t present in the library either.”

“Maybe they got moved?” I suggest.

Marco only shakes his head. “I don’t recall the library ever being disorganized. Or… I don’t know it might just be a me thing. I’m already super weird anyway.” He smiles sheepishly. “I know you two didn’t find anything cause you spent your time being lovey-dovey at the back.”

“Right, right.” I sigh, looking down at the ground. “Then what was the book you and Jean were hollering about for a while there? Was it not important?”

“Turns out it wasn’t.” Jean says, shrugging his shoulders. “I mean, if you think a world map is important then we can let you guys check it out. I don’t see how it can help us though.”

“Is that so?” Bertholdt says, tilting his head to the side. “Can I have it? I think it’d just be interesting for me to have.” Jean nods his head, walking over to the wooden table.

“Sure thing.” He says, throwing the dusty paper at him.

“Thanks. I’ll check it out later today then. Maybe before I go to sleep.” Bertholdt neatly folds the paper into a smaller rectangle and slides it into his pant pocket. He looks at me with a joyful grin, squeezing my hand tightly. 

At the door is Dr. Hunter who has come back to retrieve us. He calls out for our group in an instant. We rush to the front of the library. As we run, I make eye contact with Bertholdt. I think it would be wise to keep our relationship a secret from the doctors. Besides, they don’t  _ need _ to know about it anyway. As if Bertholdt read my mind, he nods in acknowledgement. I smirk at him before returning my gaze to the library’s doors. 

“What were you four doing in the back?” Dr. Hunter asks out of the blue on our walk back.

“Looking for books, of course.” Marco says, shrugging his shoulders. 

“Ah. I never see you two dig around in the back. Interesting.” He unlocks the sliding metal and glass doors allowing us to enter our room. “Get some rest. Don’t stay up past 10:00 PM.” Dr. Hunter warns before the door snaps back into place, locking itself automatically.

“I’m guessing tomorrow’s gonna be another tough and exhausting day…” Marco gorans, flopping onto the bed. “Can’t they just give us a break? If they did, maybe I’d wanna stay here…”

“Touché.” Jean sighs. “How many days have I been here for again? Would that make it four or five?”

“Four or five days in and you’re already in a bad condition.” Bertholdt says, shrugging his shoulders. “They’re speeding things up for some reason.”

“Hence why I’m guessing tomorrow will be ten times more exhausting.” Marco jumps up from the bed and walks over to the cabinet, pulling out a juice box.

“Hey hand me one.”

“Already got you Braun.”

I catch the box, thanking Marco. “Apple juice.” I mutter to myself.

“Hey guys!” Marco calls from the back of the room. “Um, do you guys wanna play Crazy Eights? I figured it’d be nice to play something to lighten the mood.” He sits down at the rectangle shaped table, getting the pack of cards out of it’s box.   
  
I look around at the others who join him, then at Bertholdt who turns around waiting for my response.

“Sounds like a good idea.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Annnnnddd expect JeanMarco-centric chapters soon as well!
> 
> I'm just going to say it now, the chapter title for today seems a bit confusing right?
> 
> It's interpretation is a little hard to get maybe, but I wonder if you guys'll get it when future chapters release.
> 
> ANYWAY no more spoilers for now ahahahahah-
> 
> Um... Thank you again for keeping up with Experiment! ^^
> 
> Edit: I just realized that Jean suddenly being strong enough to hold Marco up sounds weird.
> 
> It'll be cleared up next chapter okay shshsh


	17. Come Back Once You've Gotten Out (Bertholdt's POV)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys!
> 
> Sorry for not posting the chapter. If I do this right (and if I manage to pull it off), two chapters will release today.
> 
> Why?
> 
> It's my birthday, so I've decided to give you guys a little treat :>
> 
> Without further ado, enjoy today's chapter! I cleared up Jean's sudden strength as well, btw. More details about it will be in Jean's POV which hopefully releases today. (If not, soon.)

_ “This map is… Large.” _

_ “Larger than I expected!” _

“Look at that! Is the world actually that big?!” Jean exclaims, pointing to a large figure on the map we found yesterday.

“Shut up Jean.” Reiner scolds, sighing afterwards. “Cool it or they might confiscate this from us.”

“Yeah, yeah. My bad, sorry.” He traces his finger over the thin, easily tearable piece of paper. It’s got folds all over it along with a few cuts and tears, but overall it’s pretty intact. 

“I doubt the whole world is just on that piece of paper. I think it might be a portion of it, actually.” Marco grabs a hold of the map and I let him take it. “See? It specifically states that this is one place… Like… Uh… I’m not actually sure what a large landmass is called.”

“A continent…?” I mutter. “Wait, no. A country?”

“How do you know what this stuff is?” Reiner chuckles, ruffling my hair.

“I’m not sure? I must have seen it somewhere. I just can’t remember.”

_ Can’t remember… _

“A-Anyway, I wonder if this is the country we're in, actually.” My eyes scan the map, trying to find something that seems familiar. Maybe it could help jog mine or the others’ memories. I noticed a bunch of rivers flowing along the middle of the place, making me wonder if this was where  _ I _ used to live. I remember a river showing up while I slept. The cold water splashing against the rocks, the fish that would swim alongside the edges of the earth, that feeling is something I’d like to feel again.

It would be ten times better now with Reiner and the others by my side.

And maybe that other boy who showed up in my dreams.

“Does anything else seem familiar to you guys?” I ask, handing the map to Jean and the others to get a good look. Marco hums softly, rubbing his chin. He shakes his head shortly after.

“Nope. Nothing for me.” He says, frowning.

“Not me either.” Jean sighs.

“How about you Reiner?” I say, looking up from the map.

“I’m… Not really sure?” He replies, giving off a confused look. I get up from my spot and hug his large frame from behind, burying my face into his left shoulder.

“It’s okay.” I say softly.

Reiner puts his hand on top of my head. “Thanks Bertl.”

“You guys can’t get enough of each other, huh?” Marco says, laughing. “But hey, I’m happy that you two are together.”

Reiner and I give Marco a gentle smile before looking back down at the map. “I guess there isn’t much to look at anymore. Plus, it’s getting quite close to assessment time.” I pick it up, folding it back into its rectangle shape before storing it in my drawer to keep it hidden away from the doctors. 

“Do you think there are more maps in the library?” I ask, turning around to face the group.

“It’s a possibility.” Jean says, fixing his hair. “Maybe we can check it out again sometime this week? Or tomorrow? Or today? Or— J-Just whenever I guess.”

Reiner turns his gaze to Jean, crossing his arms. “Sounds good man. Can’t wait to see what other stuff we find.”

“Didn’t you guys want a map of the lab?” Marco comments, flopping onto an armchair, his body hanging over one of the chair’s arms. 

“In my opinion trying to make a map or even get one of this place is kinda sketchy. It’d also be kinda hard, even just to get the important places.” Jean states, getting up to stretch his good arm. “Besides, we’re underground right? I’d say it’s just best to wing it and just get the hell out of here.”

“Jean, are you okay?” Marco suddenly blurts out of nowhere.

“I’m fine. Why?”

“Actually, were you okay yesterday?” Reiner says, chiming in.

“W-Why what?”

“I— or we— just noticed that you’re all of a sudden like… Fine? You’re standing up on your own too. I’m guessing your leg has gotten better in the past few days.”

I look down at Jean’s lower body. Reiner was right. He was standing perfectly fine with just the cast and didn’t seem to need his crutches anymore. 

“Reiner’s right Jean. Remember when you carried Marco on your shoulders when we were at the library yesterday? That was your sixth day here and you recovered pretty fast.” Me and Jean exchange confused glances. 

“I thought you said it was my fifth day in?”

“S-Sorry! I kinda lost track.”

Jean sighs heavily, but gives me a somewhat reassuring smile. “Hell, I can’t even really remember for the life of me, so it’s okay.” He scratches the back of his neck gently before speaking again. “Anyway, Dr. Holt gave me some sort of recovery drug that day, so I guess it did its job.”

Smiling, I place my shoulder gently on his hand. 

“You’re getting better. That’s the good thing.”

The doors slide open once again, Dr. Hunter walking inside with that clipboard of his. I looked up at the clock. It was time for assessments. Jean would probably just end up seeing Dr. Holt for a quick check up before coming back here to rest up, and me, Reiner, and Marco would be fighting in the hologram chambers.

Wait, no. I have to see Luanna today.

The book. I have to ask her about it.

“Right. Today you three will be continuing your Virtual Reality Chamber assessments, and you will just be seeing Dr. Holt for today.”

_ “I-I have a question.” _

Dr. Hunter’s gaze falls on me. Along with the others, they’re looking at me too, awaiting my question. I fumble with my fingers, feeling nervous.

“I-I’d actually like to be in the chamber this time.”

Reiner’s face catches my gaze. I know we talked about this, but I can tell he’s still worried about the decision I'm making. It needs to be done, I have to do it. I don’t know if it’d benefit me or the others even, but I have a feeling it will.

_ “I’ll be fine.”  _ I say, mouthing my response.

Reiner lets out a sigh, but nods his head.

“Well, if that’s what you’d like, I’ll see if Dr. Leitner can make arrangements.”

I nod my head, gulping quietly.

A moment later, Dr. Hunter comes back. I bit my lip, wondering if Dr. Leitner agreed to let me inside the chamber for today.

“He said today will be fine.”

I feel myself jump for joy almost. Dr. Hunter makes a gesture, asking me to come along with him to get this done as soon as possible. Before I do so, I wave to Reiner and the others, hoping they’ll know that I’ll be okay. 

“Let’s go.” Dr. Hunter says, adjusting his glasses.

* * *

The door to the dark chamber opens, its crisp cold air hitting me in the face as it does so. For once, I willingly step inside, not feeling pressured to do so. The door shuts with a heavy noise echoing inside the room. A loud  _ click _ seals the door in place, leaving me nowhere to run if I ever were to.

Sighing deeply, I start walking around the room. My hallucinations should be showing up fairly soon, right? I felt like I should be holding onto something, but I couldn’t figure out what. Instead, I continued looking for Luanna.

“Luanna?” I called out in the darkness. “I-It’s Bertholdt! Can we talk about something?”

No one responds. My hallucinations haven’t been showing up. They’re usually here within two or three minutes. It’s not the dark either. A faint glow outlines their body which allows me to see them more clearly. Why is it that my hallucinations don’t show up when I really want them to?!   
  


Something is… Not right. My hallucinations not being present in the room isn’t the only problem. The atmosphere feels odd as well. I shivered. Why was the room suddenly so cold? I mean, it is cold in general, but this is way too much to be normal. Specs of light started to dart around the room, confusing me even more. Panic began to flow through my body, shocking me like electricity. I felt time stop for a second. It was almost like I was having some kind of weird episode.

Then something light taps my shoulder which makes me jump in fear.

Thank God, it was just Luanna.

She tilts her head, presumably asking me what’s wrong. I gently put my hand on top of her head. “It’s alright. Don't worry about me. I was just… Um, feeling dizzy for a moment there.” When I looked down, I noticed that she wasn’t holding her diary. Then it hits me.

I  _ forgot _ to bring it with me. The only thing I had was the family photo in my pant pocket.

_ ‘Thanks for keeping my diary safe. You do know that it’s quite rude to peek and read something so confidential, right?’ _

Or so I thought.

“I-I—! S-Sorry! I didn’t know it was yours! Well, initially…” I spoke nervously, hoping she’d forgive me. “I was going to give it back to you, but it looks like you found it.”

I guess that means she can tamper with the real world. 

_ ‘People have the tendency to shove their noses into other peoples’ things. It can’t be helped.’  _ Luanna wrote, sighing shortly after. She still gave me her usual gentle smile, nonetheless. I slipped my hand into my pocket again, pulling out a black and white photo. 

“This slipped out of your, um, diary. It’s yours right?” I handed Luanna the photo, letting her get a good look at the people in it. She nodded, beginning to write something down on her blank diary page again.

_ ‘Yes. This is my family. Come sit with me, I’ll introduce you to them.’ _

I sat down, leaning my back against the metal wall. Luanna huddles up next to me as her small head rests on my shoulder. Her finger points to a woman and a man in fancy clothes.

Her mother and father.

_ ‘That’s my mother and father. Mother was an English teacher while father worked as a scientist. He made lots of medicine to help the sick people.’  _ She pointed to the next group of family members. Herself and her siblings.

_ ‘This is Andrè, my older brother, that’s my older sister Isabella, and this is my younger brother Eric.’ _

Wait, Eric?

Surely the names are coincidences, right?  
  
There’s no way that one of my hallucinations is actually one of her siblings. But then again, they do look similar and they have the same name… 

“C-Could you tell me a bit more about them?” I stuttered, still caught up in my train of thoughts. Luanna nodded, quickly writing out a couple things about each family member as if it were an assignment. My eyes quickly scanned through her list once she presented it to me.

_ Father: Works as a scientist. Made medicine to help cure those suffering from the plague. I don’t know where he is now. I miss him a lot. _

_ Mother: She’s an English teacher. She taught me how to write and read lots. I can’t find her either. _

_ Andrѐ: He’s really smart. He’s good at math and science. I see him but I barely recognize him. I wonder what happened. _

_ Isabella: She does a bunch of art. She’s super talented and she even plays the flute. I haven’t seen her since, though. _

_ Eric: He’s two years younger than me. We love to play games together, but we don’t anymore because I keep getting hurt.  _

I took a moment to re-read her notes again. It wasn’t because I didn’t understand it, but just to make sure I didn’t miss anything. One thing I happened to find common was that something happened to each family member. She hasn’t seen her mother, father, and sister in forever, but she’s seen her two brothers. Exactly… Where though? I didn’t think that she could actually see them. Could I not?

“Is it alright if I ask what... Happened to your family?” I ask. I didn’t want to bring back unpleasant memories. Luanna nods her head, hiding her book from my sight. I figured that she wanted some time to herself, given the subject is probably a bit too much for her to handle. I sit on the ground, still next to her, patiently waiting for Luanna to finish writing. While that happened, I wondered what could have possibly happened. Did they die from the three disasters? Did they die from the mutated humans? 

I jump slightly as Luanna taps my shoulder, telling me she was finished.  _ ‘I hope this is enough detail. I don’t really know the full thing, but this is what I can gather.’  _

Shivers went down my spine when my eyes looked down on the paper.

She used to write in black ink, but for some reason the colour had turned  _ red. _ The writing was no longer her clean, fancy handwriting. It was all in capital letters and it looked like she pressed really hard on the paper. Luanna looked at me, confused about my facial expression. I force a smile, reassuring her that I was alright. I feel a lump go down my throat as my gaze shifts to the diary. Was Luanna turning into my other hallucinations? The ones that would hurt and torment me forever?    
  


Or, was she one this whole time and she was only revealing her true colours  _ now? _

**_‘My father was a scientist who made medicine to help those in the plague. I can’t remember the name of the place he worked at, though. Recently he’s been acting a bit more secretive. He doesn’t let me play at my friend’s house anymore or let mother go out to tea. One day, he left for work but he didn’t come back home. My brother Andrè decided to go and talk with a detective at the police station, but he didn’t come back either. Mother started to get worried, so she called father’s work. They asked her to come over, so she did and left me and Eric in Isabella’s care. Later that evening, the people at my fathers work came to our house. They asked us to come to his workplace, and Isabella agreed to take us there. I thought we’d meet him and mother there, but that wasn’t the case. They brought me to a room and told me to relax. My body started to hurt unexpectedly._ **

**_I don’t remember what happened after that.’_ **

My lips pressed together. The passage I had read left me speechless. I hungered for more information, despite this being all Luanna had. It was so vague that whatever happened was still unclear to me. I couldn’t really blame her, though. It must have been frightful those past few days. All the uncertainty going on in her head must have scared her. 

“I… I-I’m sorry.” I blurt out, not knowing what to say. The event was just so… Odd. Like something wasn’t right about it. I didn’t know exactly what it was though. Maybe if I head to the library later today I could try and figure out what could have happened…

Or I could just read her diary, if she’d let me that is. 

_ ‘It’s okay.’  _ She writes, sighing gently. Her hands manage to find my arm from the darkness as she clings onto me tightly. Looking down at her, just feeling so gutted, I wrap Luanna in my arms, giving her a much needed hug. Even though we gave them every time I came into this room, I knew that she needed it the most right now. At that moment, I felt a connection with her, with the  _ others _ in fact. 

She lost her family, like me and the others. The only difference is that their disappearance wasn’t never…  _ Disclosed _ thoroughly enough to her. I want to make a guess and say it was a planned set of events, but I wondered what would even cause people to make others go missing. People don’t just  _ do _ things for the sake of doing it. Kinda like how the doctors perform dangerous experiments on us. They don’t do it because they have nothing else to do, but apparently it’s for our own good. It’s their job after all, right? 

But maybe, just maybe I can help her get some closure. For everything she’s done to me, this is probably the best gift I could give her. She deserves to know what happened to her family. Figuring it out is definitely going to be a challenge since I don’t even know where to start. Luanna  _ is _ in my head though for some reason. 

And that reason might be to help her figure out what happened to her and her family. 

“Hey, Luanna?” She looks up at me once I’ve grabbed her attention, tilting her head to the side. “I… I’m going to help you find out what happened to your family! You’ve done so much for me here in the past six months… I just thought that giving you a clear conclusion about what happened to your family would be the perfect gift.” 

Luanna hesitates for a brief moment, but smiles.

_ ‘Thank you.’  _ She mouths, hugging me once again.

“You’re welcome.” I say, patting the top of her head gently. “Oh! I need to ask you something, actually. You said you’ve seen your brother from time to time,  _ both _ your brothers right? Would it be alright if I talked to them?”

Luanna doesn’t answer. She bites her lip and pulls me up. I move along with her as we start walking around the dark room together. Looking around, I wonder where she would take me. The room always felt like it stretched on forever, even though it was only about as big as our confinement area. What place would she take me to? Her house? Where her father worked?

Trees and wilderness start to grow from the ground. A cloud of fog surrounds us. Despite this, Luanna still holds onto my hand, leading me through the thick forest. We take a right, then suddenly there’s a clear pathway. Was this where her house would be? Just as we finally arrive, the scenery changes to a dark setting. I felt my heart begin to pound faster. In a flash, there was something unsettling about this place.

Then I saw it.

Right in front of me was each hallucination I had come across. 

Luanna pushes me forward, trying to get me to go there. Towards  _ them _ . Panic started to run throughout my body making sweat drip down my forehead. I see all six of them, their eyes fixed on me. Why did she bring me to them…? I felt tears slowly build up in my eyes. I didn’t understand what was going on. Eric looks up, happy to see me.

_ “Bertholdt, Bertholdt! Did you come to play with me?” _

_ “No, he did not Eric.” _

The shadowy figure that’s stabbed me more than once walks up to me, putting a hand on my shoulder before leaning in to whisper in my ear.

_ “You want to know?” _

_ “K-Know about—?” _

_ “What happened? If that’s it, come back once you’ve gotten out.” _

His knife comes out of nowhere, causing me to back up.

I still didn’t understand.

Turning around, Luanna looks at me with sorrow on her face.

A bright light suddenly emerges from the room, and I find that Dr. Leitner came to pick me up.

I stood there, stunned, trying to process all the information in my head. It didn’t make sense to me, I needed more time to absorb it and look through it thoroughly. But the words he spoke kept bouncing around in my head, cancelling out all other audio. 

_ ‘Come back once you’ve gotten out.’ _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope y'all enjoyed today's chapter!
> 
> Hopefully I get out that other chapter for you guys. We're getting really really close to the action!
> 
> Thank you so much for keeping up with Experiment!


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